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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228976">When the Police Come to Get Me, I'm Listening to Dance Music</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theo_Winterwood/pseuds/Theo_Winterwood'>Theo_Winterwood</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dance Music [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Asexual Character, Auror Harry Potter, Aurors, Barista Draco Malfoy, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Found Family, Gen, Knockturn Alley, M/M, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, POC Harry Potter, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Polyamorous Character, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Slow Burn, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible, Well really it's the Aurors, but it's also both and I'm pleased that tag exists, come for the mutual pining and diner coffee stay for the political intrigue and auror drama, if you're gonna start a rebellion bring all your friends and at least one former enemy, post-war politics, very slow burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:34:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>177,331</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theo_Winterwood/pseuds/Theo_Winterwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You’re not Harry Potter,” Malfoy told him, pronouncing it like a title, like a proper noun that was not a person’s name. “Just as I’m not Draco Malfoy.” He licked his lips, feeling how thin and fragile the space between them had just become. He spread his fingers along the edge of the table, knowing that in another world, one where he’d learned tenderness and courage, he would slide one hand across and clasp it over Harry’s now. He didn't. He just said, “I used to be. You may never have been.”</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry is given what should have been a boring routine bureaucratic assignment. If it hadn't taken him to Maine. If it hadn't forced a reunion with Draco Malfoy.</p>
<p>Now nothing seems boring or routine anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Other(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dance Music [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>115</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title lyrics from "Dance Music" by The Mountain Goats.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> I would probably describe this fic as being about as gen as is it romantic--It's probably about as much about getting by with a little help from your friends as it is about navigating the brave new world of having feelings for your former nemesis. Or, as I pitched it to a friend:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Do you like quarter life crises and ethical quandaries about post-war law enforcement, and are you willing to invest in a very minor Ravenclaw as a major secondary character? Do you like multiple queer characters but just a small handful of love scenes? Have you ever thought, <em>I like Harry Potter, but nobody ever ate a lobster roll in those books?</em> Then boy do I have the story for you!</p>
</blockquote>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter One</strong>
</p><p> </p><p><em>I ain’t nothing but tired</em><br/>
<em>Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself</em></p><p> </p><p>Terry Boot came back in from their lunch break, tossing their long knit scarf over a hook on the old coat rack in the corner of the office, next to the cabinets of files that nobody but Terry and Harry ever looked at.</p><p>As they unzipped their leather motorcycle jacket and hung it up, they remarked, “Colder’n a witch’s tit out there, innit?”</p><p>Harry looked up from the paperwork he’d spent most of the day pretending to fill out. “Of all the Muggle idioms you could have <em>possibly</em> picked up,” he replied.</p><p>In the middle of Harry’s desk, Terry set down a pint of soup and a plastic spoon from the Muggle café a few blocks outside the Ministry complex. A faint pinkish haze shimmered around the lidded container from the warming spell Terry had used. “Because man cannot live on a desk drawer full of chocolate biscuits alone,” they informed Harry.</p><p>Harry laughed a little. “We don’t know that yet. So far, so good.”</p><p>With a grin, Terry tossed themself carelessly into their desk chair, not seeming to care that they were tracking mud and slush from the soles of their boots onto the seat.</p><p>Harry was fairly sure they were the same scuffed and tattered Doc Martens Terry had been wearing since Hogwarts, probably only still barely held intact through sheer stubbornness and the constant application of strategic mending charms. The Auror Department had imposed a particularly strict dress code on Terry when they were hired, but they did their best to skirt the letter of the law in the few places they could.</p><p>Terry’s robes were still draped over the back of their chair where they had shrugged them off before lunch.</p><p>They did not put them back on.</p><p>Instead, they arranged their slender frame in a manner less like a Ministry employee preparing to work and more like a cat contemplating an after-meal nap, stretching and cracking their knuckles.</p><p> Rubbing the heels of his hands over his face, Harry tried to fake interest in the paperwork in front of him, on which he’d only managed to fill in about two lines all morning.</p><p>As if he could really hide his increasingly questionable work ethic from the person who sat so close beside him in this small room.</p><p>After all, Terry couldn’t <em>begin</em> to hide from Harry their flightiness, their complete apathy for their job, the days they came in blisteringly hung over, the days Harry suspected Terry smoked a joint before work, the too many breaks they took, the too-long lunches, the pattern they’d gotten into of disappearing without warning, only to return some time later rumpled and sated, smiling like a secret, mouth pink and flush.</p><p>And through it all, Terry Boot was still too damned sharp and too damned perceptive for their own good, so Harry was certain that, yes, Terry was all too aware Harry was only <em>barely</em> a better employee than they were.</p><p>The office they shared was hidden like some small shame in one of the far back corridors of the Auror Department, its cozy interior cobbled together from the old furniture cast off from the main offices as part of an effort to cultivate a more modern with-the-times image. <em>Dazzle the public with sleek new desks</em>, Harry had thought cynically once, <em>and you don’t have to change any of your policies</em>.</p><p>Their desks were the old wooden behemoths whose finish had worn away at least two generations earlier; Harry and Terry estimated some of the stains were from tea and soup spilled when Victoria was still on the throne.</p><p>Terry had, however, deigned to keep the new rolling office chair they’d been issued, and spent too much of their day idly spinning it around and rolling it back and forth across the narrow open space on their side of the office.</p><p>Harry, meanwhile, had managed to sneak in an old winged armchair he suspected <em>might</em> have been something once confiscated as evidence. The wall beside the chair had a half-dozen photos of his children spellotaped to the pockmarked plaster, and a drawing James had done almost a year ago of the family: five crayon figures with big aspirational smiles in front of a yellow house with a spiral of smoke from a red chimney, so utterly unlike the house at Grimmauld Place.</p><p>Terry regarded Harry tucked up inside his enormous chair, his angular golden-brown face and tousle of thick dark curls all framed in a field of threadbare green velvet upholstery. There was a glossy smudge of dark blue along one high cheekbone, and Harry’s fingertips were stained with even more ink from the pen he was toying with, twirling it back and forth between his fingers as he pretended to focus on the forms he’d been blatantly ignoring since that morning.</p><p>“Have you finished processing your quota of case files for the day, young man?” Terry asked in a tone of mock sternness, mimicking the clipped RP speech of their supervisor.</p><p>Harry rolled his eyes. “<em>What</em> quota?”</p><p>“Exactly.” Terry half-glanced at the parchment in front of Harry and asked, “So McLaggen finally foisted his East Sussex case on Hammond, did he?”</p><p>Looking down at the form, Harry saw that he had only gotten as far as filling in today’s date, and wrong. Scratching it out and correcting it, he asked, “How did you—?”</p><p>“Form thirty-four-point-nine, version B. Transfer of authority in an open investigation.” Terry saw that Harry was opening his mouth to ask a follow-up question. “How’d I know it was McLaggen? Because he’s been complaining to half the department since it was assigned him—not the half of the department with <em>me</em> in it, ‘course, he’s smarter’n that—and <em>then</em> earlier this morning, Hammond swapped out his regular ceramic mug for a paper cup from Caffè Nero.”</p><p>Harry looked blank and Terry sighed.</p><p>“Hammond wouldn’t actually stoop to drink anything from a Muggle shop,” Terry explained slowly, as though Harry might just be pretending to be thick to annoy them. “He ain’t half as egalitarian as he pretends. He just thinks that ‘cause the cup has a lid, nobody’ll guess it’s not coffee. Which means he’s started to have a bad day. Then, of course, I got a tip from Magical Transportation that McLaggen was by before lunch to pull recent Portkey records for the Hebrides. Which are, you may or may not know, nowhere <em>near</em> East Sussex.”</p><p>“I <em>know</em> where the Hebrides are,” Harry retorted.</p><p>“All right, then; wasn’t sure where you weren’t keeping up.” Terry swiveled their chair to the untouched paperwork on their desk and pretended to read it. “Y’know, I’m starting to suspect your shortcomings at this job. Not really big on observation, are you?”</p><p>“Haven’t we had this conversation?”</p><p>“Sure, but it’s nice to remind meself that I’m not the only one what can’t be trusted to touch actual cases. Even if the reasons are <em>very</em> different between us.” Terry spun back to study Harry thoughtfully. “How long d’you think they plan to keep this up?”</p><p>Terry leaned forward, resting their elbows on their knees and propping their chin on their intertwined hands to study Harry with those odd large eyes of theirs, their attention entirely turned on their officemate, rather than scattered in a dozen directions as it normally was.</p><p>Terry was almost pretty, in their own way, but their features were each a degree off in a manner that made their whole face seem imperceptibly incorrect in some small unnamable way: their nose a shade too short, their mouth a trace too large, their eyes just barely too wide-set.</p><p>It was the eyes; that was the problem.</p><p>They were too big and too bright and too round. They seemed to know far too much, seemed to blink far too little, as they fixed on someone, frank and intent, as though content to wait as long as it took to get what Terry wanted.</p><p>Maybe that was part of why people used to tell them things.</p><p>Harry clicked his ballpoint pen shut and put it back in the little canister at the corner of his desk that held a few stray pens, a slightly chewed-on pencil, and all the quills he was issued on his first day and never used. He had learned by now there was no use in pretending to be busy with work when Terry was in the mood to ask a <em>real</em> question and expect a <em>real</em> answer for it. Terry didn’t let go once they started in, not until they’d found their in to learn what they wanted.</p><p><em>No wonder</em>, Harry thought, for far from the first time, <em>they made themself a spy, back then.</em></p><p>“Keep what up?” he asked carefully, taking the lid off his soup and taking a deep breath of the cloud of steam it released, smelling of chicken and cream and saffron.</p><p>He knew the answer to Terry’s question; they both did. It just seemed safer to let Terry take the first plunge.</p><p>Terry Boot, Ravenclaw’s perpetual discipline case, the delinquent too clever by half. Until the summer after their sixth year, when they let themself get caught in the game of espionage they’d been the one to start, working untrained without a net.</p><p><em>That’s me lot in this sorry mess,</em> they said one time, with a slow wry smile. <em>You start a war and I figure I’m the most good if I leave your secret student army and strike out to try’n </em>know<em> things. Could’ve just stayed with the Children’s Crusade, where everyone came out the other side either a martyr or a hero.</em></p><p><em>You make it sound so simple</em>, Harry had responded.</p><p>“Keep <em>what</em> up,” Terry was echoing as they twirled their chair from side to side, a metronome marking the meter of their thoughts as they gathered them together into a nice plain bundle. Harry, they knew, preferred plain. <em>Gryffindors: Always give it to ‘em straight, no gilding, no extra philosophy filigreeing the edges of your facts. </em>“You tell me, Potter. Tell me about this office, about you, about me, about the meaningless clerking tasks they give us but never check on.”</p><p>“I requested a transfer out of the field,” Harry began, choosing his words carefully and knowing that for all the clean honest lines he thought in, he was talking to someone who worked in knots and curlicues.</p><p>“You was requested to request it,” Terry corrected him, “but go on.”</p><p>Harry shot Terry an impatient look. “Fine. Okay. I finished training and was sent out into the field—making arrests, raids, search and seizure, and… And I wasn’t—I wasn’t <em>good</em> at it.” He paused. “No. I <em>was</em> pretty good at it, for a long time. I was <em>okay</em> at it, anyway. But I didn’t <em>like</em> it.” Another pause. “No, that’s not it either.”</p><p>Terry waited. Something like sympathy twisted briefly at the corners of their mouth, halfway between a reassuring smile and a grimace of understanding. But they weren’t going to bail Harry out of finishing what he’d started.</p><p>Harry settled on: “It wasn’t good. Not for me. I didn’t feel good about the things I was doing anymore; I didn’t feel like it was making me a better person.” He frowned and then looked over at Terry with defiance set in the tilt of his chin. “There. Is that enough for you?”</p><p>“I knew that,” Terry said. “How could anyone not. How could… How could that even <em>surprise</em> anyone, that you couldn’t cut it?”</p><p>“It surprised me.”</p><p>“Of course it did. Stick to what you know, right? Bloody hell, you was stuck on this career path since we was <em>children</em>, bruv.” They shook their head and made a <em>tsk</em> sound, then slid a half empty pack of Sobranie Black Russians out from somewhere in the clutter of their desk. They pulled out one of the black-and-gold cigarettes and lit it with a casual flick of their wand, then continued, “Of <em>course</em> you wanted to be an Auror. You’re a bleedin’ <em>natural</em> for the gig. Poster child recruit right here.”</p><p>“You’re having me on now, aren’t you?” Harry asked.</p><p>Terry shook their head. “Just making sure you’re up to speed on your half of the situation.”</p><p>“Right, sure, the golden boy Auror who turns out to really suck at being an Auror. Believe me, I’ve <em>been</em> aware of all that. <em>Acutely</em>. I’m all too familiar with the joy of discovering that all of the <em>everything</em> I did before won’t turn me into some kind of law enforcement prodigy.” Harry shoved his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose, annoyed more at <em>himself</em> than anything else. “Why exactly are we having this conversation now? Did Hermione tell you to talk to me about my job feelings, or—?”</p><p>“Jesus fucking Merlin <em>Christ</em>, Potter. One: No, Hermione and I don’t really have a feelings-talk kind of relationship. Two: If she wants you to talk to someone about your feelings, you should do that. Because if Hermione Granger wants you to do <em>anything</em>, you’d best get to it. She’s bloody terrifying. And, three: We’re having this conversation <em>now</em> because it’s too late to have had it in the past and it really shouldn’t be put off until the future, so the present’s what we’re left with.” Terry blew a lacy ring of smoke and watched it float up to the ceiling. “Or maybe it’s four: I’ve got an interesting work-related proposition for you, but I want to get these cards all out on the table first, so you believe me when I say I’ve got no ulterior motive here.”</p><p>Harry glanced back down at his barely-begun paperwork and then back at his officemate. “I have to tell you,” he informed them, “I’m not really in love with <em>anything</em> you just said.”</p><p>“I know. Where were we?”</p><p>“I’d asked to be put in an office position, at least for a while.”</p><p>“Right. And you had one for a little while. A <em>normal</em> boring office job. And then they stick you here, in this <em>abnormal</em> boring one. So that, Harry love, is the million-Galleon question: What’s your <em>real</em> job here?”</p><p>“You know I’ve asked you never to call me that again,” Harry said, though they both knew it had long ago stopped bothering him. He furrowed his brow and mused, “You know the answer. I know the answer. I just always thought—I was under the impression we’d agreed to pretend we just <em>happened</em> to be assigned this shared office by coincidence. So I hadn’t <em>said</em>… What was I going to say to you, anyway? That I’d heard the rumors? That the Aurors decided you were worth putting on the payroll, given, er, your whole history. During the war. You know.”</p><p>“Pretended to appeal to me sense of justice: Here’s your chance to be good for something and work on the side of right, catching the baddies and putting ‘em away, but doing it all clean and honest-like. Don’t that sound <em>nice</em>, Boot? Don’t that sound <em>good</em>?”</p><p>“Huh,” Harry said, smiling a little, knowing that his voice might sound a little sharp and bitter as he said, “I guess they must have given all of us a version of that same speech.”</p><p>“It works.”</p><p>“It sure does.”</p><p>“The only difference being?”</p><p>“That they actually <em>did</em> want me for the catching-the-baddies-and-putting-them-away,” Harry said. “You, they didn’t trust. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? That they never actually <em>told</em> me you’re being kept in a holding pattern of having to prove you aren’t—what a lot of people still worry you might have been. So they put you in the one department of the Ministry they were sure could keep an eye on you, sticking in you in some civilian aid administrative position and never authorizing you to begin Auror training.” Harry frowned. “Eventually they stuck you in here, I mean. Not right away. What was it for the first few months? Them <em>pretending</em> to let you start training?”</p><p>Terry blinked as if they’d never expected Harry to actually think to ask <em>that</em> question. “The first eight and a half months. And no, never mind that part, Harry love. That ain’t salient to the point I’m getting to.” They flicked their fringe back out of their eyes. “The point is where they’ve got us now.”</p><p>“How now they’ve got—” Harry fought back the urge to look around the room, as if he could see whether someone had ears on them. <em>They probably don’t, we’re probably not worth the effort, but they </em>could<em>. If they wanted. So why are you going to keep talking, you idiot? Because that’s what you do; that’s what you’ve always done. Keep on rushing on, consequences be damned.</em> “How they’ve got the Boy Who Lived—gods help us—already on desk duty, so who better to get transferred to work with an old school chum, because surely I’ll bring it up if I suspect anything, <em>surely</em> I’ll let them know if you’re doing anything dodgy. Surely I’ll be the first to point a finger like a good citizen, especially where Voldemort is concerned. Which. Yes. I <em>would</em>. They <em>know</em> I would.”</p><p>“Keep the Hero of Our Age on the payroll because it’s bad press to imply you’re not a good fit with the Aurors. Because keeping you around is about the best PR the whole department’s got going for ‘em these days. And use him to whistleblow everyone’s favorite double agent for the Dark Lord if he has to. Give the double agent a desk job that keeps them from ever getting their hands on too much information, because at least then you know where they are and who they’re working for.”</p><p>“I don’t think you were really a double agent,” Harry said firmly. “You <em>know</em> that.”</p><p>“I did help the Death Eaters <em>some</em>. You know <em>that</em> too. So of course more than enough people figure I were actually <em>eager</em> to pass on… the things I passed on. And even <em>that</em> aside, you know how it goes—To keep the world safe, you draw lines harder than maybe you would otherwise. Blacklist some families wholesale. Get a little less forgiving, a little more J. Edgar. And then point at a half-dozen warning signs I can check off on their do-not-trust list.”</p><p>“Because you came from an old Pureblood family,” Harry murmured. “Never mind it wasn’t one with any power.”</p><p>“Not just <em>any</em> old Pureblood family,” Terry corrected him. “An old <em>Knockturn Alley</em> family. And, sure, the Boots and Burkes and Borgins ain’t never gotten elected to office and ain’t swanning about their enormous estates; not <em>us</em>, the bottom-feeders and bootlickers and petty black market peddlers. But we was all of us Purebloods, and a whole lot of people in me old neighborhood was certain when the Dark Lord came to power, they’d somehow suddenly get the slice of the pie they was sure they deserved, as though the Blacks and the Malfoys of the world might have a miraculous change of heart and want to share the throne with us.”</p><p>“With <em>them</em>,” Harry corrected him. “You’re not a part of that <em>us</em>. You never were.”</p><p>As he said it, he wondered if that was really what Terry wanted to hear.</p><p>His whole life, Harry had been grateful to hear he wasn’t like the place he came from, its world of neatly trimmed grass and uniform back fences and matching houses straight as a line of soldiers with their thousand small suburban cruelties within, muffled behind walls with tidy wallpaper and wall-to-wall plush carpet in pale cold colors that held the faint shadows of stains they all pretended to ignore.</p><p>Where Terry had grown up was harsh in different ways, Harry knew, from the couple brief times he’d been in Knockturn in his young student summers, and again during the war later, and then every time since when he’d been sent in as an Auror. But Terry had never placed the careful walls between <em>themself</em> and <em>there</em> that Harry had done with Privet Drive. They clung hard to their Knockturn Alley accent, its rough lilting cadences a distant cousin to Cockney, an accent raised in isolation to become something separate all its own. The Knockturn dialect was something insular crystallized a century ago in that cellar-deep sunless corner of the city, carrying in it the sound of shadowed alleys and cold slick cobblestones, danger and broken glass and split knuckles and a dark little island kept like a private shame in the heart of a city that pretended it wasn’t there. Until someone needed something from it.</p><p>But Terry was grinning at Harry for what he’d said. “Can I get that in writing? Notarize that: Harry Potter don’t think I should be sent down on a sins-of-the-fathers clause.” They started to count off on their fingers, cigarette dangling carelessly from the corner of their mouth: “Old family. Knockturn Alley. <em>Everyone</em> knew the Hat considered me for Slytherin before sticking me in Ravenclaw with the other prats who don’t know when to stop thinking too much. And <em>then</em> I kind of dated a Slytherin for most of sixth year, so ‘questionable loyalties’ and ‘suspect sympathies’ and all that.”</p><p>“Oh, right. That whole <em>thing</em> with Blaise,” Harry remembered. “I’m not even sure that was ‘dating.’ We all thought it was more like ‘hooking up in secret but being really bad at keeping it secret, while not actually liking each other very much.’”</p><p>Terry groaned at that. “<em>Shite</em>. Fuck. I didn’t know you all knew about that. Well, that’s bloody embarrassing.”</p><p>“You’re the one who brought it up,” Harry pointed out reasonably.</p><p>“Word of advice: When choosing a Slytherin to have it off with, don’t pick the mafioso-in-training.”</p><p>“I’ll, er, bear that mind.”</p><p>Terry ground out the end of their cigarette on the charred surface of a metal paperweight and brushed the crumpled gold foil stub into the wastebin. “Not that you’re ready for that, mind. Dating, I mean. You still got your wedding picture on the wall there, which is a whole can of worms I can’t even <em>want</em> to touch. Because you know me other advice from the whole Blaise situation? The first person you stumble into a relationship with as a teenager is probably not a <em>great</em> long-term investment.”</p><p>Harry bristled at that. “I don’t know that I ever asked you to tell me what I should do with my personal life,” he retorted, setting down his half-finished soup a shade too emphatically, before busying himself with reshuffling the forms scattered on his desk.</p><p>Terry held up their hands in surrender. “Okay. Message received. We can definitely stick to <em>impersonal</em> matters like the fact you were a rubbish field Auror. We could even get into purely <em>professional</em> details like the <em>reasons</em> you’re so rubbish at dealing with people who’ve reached that dangerous desperate point, or rubbish at helping raid the shops and homes of families on the Ministry’s list, or rubbish at… I don’t know what else you had to do. I know you were in Knockturn Alley.”</p><p>Harry didn’t look at Terry. “It’s safer there now,” he said, his voice quiet and empty. He believed it. At least, he had always believed it before. He remembered some of the things they’d found in those raids. He couldn’t <em>not</em> remember them. They lived in the dark corners of memory, scratched indelible on the walls of the cupboards he kept shut in the back of his mind, where he closed in all the hard things so he didn’t have to look at them.</p><p>Until they rattled the doors open sometimes in late nights, in sleep or in that gray-blue lonely space close to it, when the person in bed beside you was an ocean away. And the faces and hands and flashes of green and the shapes of bodies were close enough to wake him screaming with their chill breath on his face.</p><p>“The air is dead there now,” Terry said, after fighting with themself to keep their mouth shut, just this once. <em>Just today, give the guy a half-victory. It’s not like he’s had one of those anytime recent I can remember</em>.</p><p>Harry nodded. “That was the idea. They said—Better that than steeped to saturation in dark magic and the echoes of every old cursed item created and sold there and… And you miss that. Don’t you.”</p><p>Terry shook their head. And then nodded. And then said, “It’s not important what<em> I</em> miss. I’m a Boot, but also me, so the things I miss are also things I hated.”</p><p>Harry knit his brow. He felt like he needed to apologize, though that stubborn part that knew how to burn brighter and yell louder than any other voice inside him insisted in capital letters: <em>IT’S NOT ACTUALLY </em>YOUR<em> FAULT</em>. <em>IS IT, HARRY? IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.</em></p><p>The stubborn voice loved that one particularly.</p><p>“You said you had a business proposition for me,” Harry said.</p><p>It wasn’t the right thing to say, but Harry had long ago settled into the fact that he was known to say the wrong thing sometimes.</p><p><em>Often</em>, Ginny would have corrected him.</p><p><em>Sometimes</em>, he’d plead. <em>Not always</em>.</p><p>She’d roll her eyes, not interested in going through the same tired duet yet again.</p><p><em>It’s not my fault</em>, he’d continue anyway.</p><p><em>Of course not</em>, she’d say.</p><p><em>It never is, is it</em>, she’d say.</p><p><em>Can we not</em>, she’d say, <em>I don’t want the kids to hear their parents fight</em>.</p><p>(She didn’t need to add <em>again</em>. They both heard the <em>again</em> anyway.)</p><p>Ginny hadn’t grown up in a house where you fell asleep at night to a lullaby of tense whispers, a staccato litany of sharp hissing syllables and low grumbles like the threat of thunder.</p><p>Harry had never wanted to recreate that in his own home.</p><p>Terry gave Harry a couple moments to rethink his response, but then gave up and unfurled themself from their chair to cross back over to where their jacket hung. “I’m supposed to pitch an assignment to you,” they said, pulling a large brown envelope from an inner pocket.</p><p>Sitting up straight with new interest, Harry asked, “From <em>who</em>? You’re not authorized to assign <em>me</em> work.”</p><p>“Not by Aurors I’m not,” Terry agreed, “but Shacklebolt’s girl Friday outranks them, yeah?”</p><p>“Wait. Since when does Hermione make <em>you</em> a go-between for us?”</p><p>“Since she ran into me at the café on the corner when she was trying to grab a sandwich between the five hundred meetings she’s caught in today and wanted to get this to you before anyone else did anything with it,” Terry told him. “She figured I’d be seeing you before she could detangle herself from whatever world-saving political policies she’s helping create today.” Sitting down on the edge of Harry’s desk beside the armchair, Terry fanned the envelope back and forth and observed, “I don’t think she thinks I mean it when I manage to slip into our chats, all casual-like, that if her and Weasley split, I’m probably open to clearing out my schedule if she’s interested.”</p><p>“Yeah, no, <em>nobody</em> thinks you mean that,” Harry said. “You said she was, quote, ‘bloody terrifying.’”</p><p>“I think maybe that’s my type. Blaise Zabini, if you remember.”</p><p>Harry made a face. “Either way. Hermione’s got standards, Boot.”</p><p>“She’s been dating Ron Weasley for eight years. <em>Ron Weasley</em>, Potter.”</p><p>“When do we get to the part where you tell me what’s in the envelope?”</p><p>“Blimey, patience is <em>not</em> a Gryffindor virtue, is it?” Terry sighed and ran a hand through their hair, brushing their long fringe back from their eyes. “All right, then. You know all the property that was seized around the war.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Ain’t a question, Potter.”</p><p>“Right. Sorry.”</p><p>“For all kinds of reasons, ‘cause the owners were Death Eaters or helping them, ‘cause them keeping access to their own homes was dangerous, ‘cause taking them was some kind of restitution for our losses. All them excuses, some real, some <em>very</em> real. Some less so.”</p><p>“I can’t do anything about your family’s… er, <em>house</em>.” <em>If you can call it that, what was left of it.</em></p><p>“I know <em>that</em>. What would I even <em>want</em> with—? Never mind. That’s not what this is about. Pop quiz, Potter: What was the big estate they took first to try’n rattle the last of the Death Eaters?”</p><p>“The Malfoy estate?”</p><p>“Very good. Five points to Gryffindor.”</p><p>“I was seventeen when that happened. I had nothing to do with that. I found out later, thirdhand.”</p><p>“Don’t sound so defensive, Harry love. Makes people sound guilty when they do that. Of <em>course</em> you didn’t have a bleedin’ thing to do with that. Don’t be thick.” They pulled their legs up onto the desk to sit cross-legged in the middle, sweeping Harry’s papers aside with the hand not holding the thick envelope. “So. The seizure of the Malfoy estate almost a decade ago now. What happened to it?”</p><p>“You don’t need to keep quizzing me to make sure I know obvious facts.”</p><p>Terry set the envelope down on the desk beside them, just beyond Harry’s reach. “No, I’m <em>asking</em>. I ain’t never been given a straight answer on that.”</p><p>“Let me guess: ‘Why are you asking, Boot? Why would want to know? It’s not your concern, Boot. It’s taken care of, Boot.’”</p><p>“Uncanny.”</p><p>“Hey, it’s not <em>that</em> hard to spot a pattern in the answers they give you.” Harry picked his soup back up and stirred it, took a couple bites, stalling, trying to decide how much he was allowed to tell Terry. <em>Sod it. Fuck ‘em if they’re listening, it’s not like I have anything to hide here</em>. “All the money went straight to the government, put towards the budget deficit from the war, or so I was told. Anything cursed was destroyed. Anything enchanted in any way at all, really. They didn’t want to take chances, you know? Some of the mundane things were sold after they were positive they were clean of magic—antique furniture and vases and silver and the like. I think it went through Sotheby’s. They’d just be fancy heirloom home goods to the Muggles; they wouldn’t <em>mean</em> anything, not the way letting them out for <em>us</em> to buy and display in our homes would. The house… No, the land too. The entire property is a dead cell now. Wiped clean, drained empty. <em>You</em> know.”</p><p>“Right. Okay. Basically the blueprint for what they did every time after.”</p><p>“Basically.” Harry scraped at the bottom of the paper soup container with his spoon, wishing he could think of a clever way to divert the conversation to its end. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to continue the roundabout journey Terry seemed to be leading him on.</p><p>“I can’t imagine he’ll even be wanting it back, then,” Terry mused.</p><p>Harry’s shifted his gaze suspiciously up from the last drops of chicken soup to Terry’s face, calm and implacable. “He who?” He made a grab for the envelope, and Terry pushed it farther away. “He <em>who</em>, Terry?”</p><p>Keeping their hand lightly on top of the envelope, Terry continued as though Harry hadn’t said anything, “The past decade, the Ministry’s had possession of everything the Malfoys owned. But the good folks in the legal department have discovered that maybe it’s not actually the most <em>rightful</em> ownership. At the time it was taken, things were very, er… <em>permissive</em> with what the Aurors could get away with in the name of fighting the Dark Lord. When everything was very ends-justify-the-means with them and they did whatever they wanted.”</p><p>“Before the Ministry passed those regulations that let us develop all these official we-do-what-we-want forms so it all just <em>looks</em>—” Harry stopped, realizing what he was saying, hearing the sharp bitter edge creeping into his voice.</p><p>Terry’s eyes went wide with surprise and a newfound respect. “These forms it’s our job to file, yes.”</p><p>“Sorry, I—”</p><p>“No,” Terry cut in. “Don’t.” They were quiet for a moment, biting their lower lip and knitting their brow. They seemed to want to say something more, but just shook their head. “So they realized, Hermione told me,” they continued, “we may not actually have any legal claim to whatever we’re still holding onto. Which I think may just be the house and grounds, but still. She’s trying to push the whole government towards being, y’know…”</p><p>“Good,” Harry finished. “Honest. Accountable. An institution people can start to trust again. I’ve heard the spiel before, yeah.”</p><p>“And it’s a bad look, innit, holding onto something we seized wholesale and never bothered to gain legal ownership of. So that’s where you come in.”</p><p>“I don’t like where this is going.”</p><p>“I’m sure you don’t.”</p><p>“What’s in the envelope, Boot?”</p><p>“Paperwork what needs signing.”</p><p>Harry took a deep breath and reminded himself—not for the first time—that he wasn’t supposed to strangle the person he shared an office with. “Signing by <em>who</em>, Boot.”</p><p>Terry gave him a pointed look.</p><p>“He dropped off everyone’s radar <em>years</em> ago, right after he got out. Does anyone even <em>know</em> where he lives now?” There was a frantic note rising in Harry’s voice. He spread his hands wise, saying, “What does she expect me to <em>do</em>? I’m not going to track him down, I wouldn’t even know where to start, I can’t possibly—”</p><p>“They have an address. Hermione intercepted this earlier today”—they held out the envelope to Harry, who took it without thinking—“and told me to get it to you and tell you that she, acting as an official representative of the Office of the Minister, is requesting that you be the one to go get our old school chum to sign off everything left of his family’s over to the government. ‘Cause she says if you don’t get on it, they’re going to assign one of the other Aurors to go out and take care of it. And can you <em>imagine</em> how that would go.”</p><p>“And she wants <em>me</em> to go? Has she gone mad?”</p><p>“You’re a good person. You tend to do the right thing.” Terry considered. “Ish. Most of the time. But you’re maybe the only Auror what would treat Draco Malfoy like a person.”</p><p>“Things are very… <em>complicated</em> between us, y’know. If you’ll recall, there was quite a lot of hating each other. Some attempted murder. A certain amount of being on very opposite sides of a war. And we never—I mean, I never even saw him after everything, not properly. I testified at the trial and all, but we didn’t <em>speak</em> to each other. And then I never saw him again, after he got out of Azkaban, before he disappeared. Everything just got left where it was, in all the death and warfare and rubble; nobody’d even had a chance to <em>start</em> picking up all the broken bits of everyone’s whole lives.”</p><p>“Sounds like what they call unfinished business.” Terry’s eyes flicked down to the envelope Harry was holding tight in both hands, close to his chest, as though he had already taken responsibility for its contents. “In any case, Harry love, aren’t you absolutely <em>curious</em>?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Two</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Is it any wonder why we all leave home?</em><br/>
  <em>People say, “I knew you when you were six years old.”</em><br/>
  <em>And you say, “But I’ve changed,</em><br/>
  <em>I’ve changed, I’ve changed, I’ve changed.”</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the end of the day, Harry slipped out of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and across the complex to the building that held the Minister's offices. Hermione was still at her desk when he got there, scribbling on a scroll of parchment, her face half- hidden by the mass of brown hair tumbled around it. A large horned owl perched at the edge of her desk.</p>
<p>From her determined, foreboding expression, Harry guessed it was yet another letter from an old family with strong opinions on some of Shacklebolt’s new ideas, yet another screed relying on an overuse of phrases like <em>back in our day</em> and <em>that’s just not how things are done</em>.</p>
<p>“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, slipping inside her office doorway, “but I really need to talk to you about—”</p>
<p>Hermione’s head snapped up from what she was writing to Harry’s face. “Harry! God. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you…” She glanced down at the long furl of parchment she had been rapidly filling. “Here, give me just one moment, would you?”</p>
<p>“‘Course,” he said, stepping into the room and taking a seat on the edge of the only vacant chair not stacked with files and leather-bound volumes.</p>
<p>After a few more minutes, she signed her name with a flourish—<em>Hermione Granger, on behalf of the Office of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic</em>—and pulled out a second blank sheet of parchment and laid it under her letter. She tapped the sheets with the tip of her wand and muttered, “<em>Congemino</em>.”</p>
<p>Then she pulled the duplicate from underneath, put it in her desk, and rolled the original up for delivery. “What brings you by, Harry?” she asked as she tied the scroll to the horned owl. Her voice was calm and businesslike, but she shot him a knowing look as she released the owl on its return journey.</p>
<p>“Was hoping to talk to you about something,” he said. “I reckon you can guess what.”</p>
<p>Hermione paused for just the briefest moment before answering him. “Look,” she said, “I’m really awfully busy finishing a few things up at the moment, but I’d love to catch up with how you’re doing. So why don’t you head home and I’ll give you a call when I get home myself in an hour or so?”</p>
<p>She sounded pleasant and casual, trusting Harry to be sharp enough by now to take a hint. Trusting Harry to remember the fact that the Ministry had never figured out what to do with telephones, and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had never bothered to think that phone calls might be worth learning to listen to.</p>
<p>“Sure,” he said. “Sure, of course.”</p>
<p>Hermione paused, then looked apologetic. “I won’t be able to talk long,” she added. “Ron invited Ginny and the kids over for dinner.”</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “Boy, you sure do know how to make me feel better,” he said with a rueful laugh.</p>
<p>She raised her eyebrows. “You’d rather your best friend <em>not</em> stay on good terms with his own sister?”</p>
<p>Harry sighed. “No. Obviously.”</p>
<p>With a quick sympathetic purse of her lips and shake of her head, she waved him away. “Harry, really, I <em>do</em> want to talk. But I’m serious about being busy right now. Call me and we’ll talk about—whatever it is you came to talk about.”</p>
<p>Harry was halfway out the door when Hermione added, “Ask Dennis on your way out to look at my schedule, so we can have lunch and have a proper <em>long</em> talk about how you’re doing, all right? Just tell him I asked you to get him block off a lunch appointment; you don’t need to say anything else to him.”</p>
<p>Harry nodded, knowing he wouldn’t actually do it. Hermione could scold him later if she really wanted.</p>
<p>As he stepped back out into the Ministry complex, he considered Apparating home to the sitting room of his flat, the way many of his colleagues commuted. The way he himself often did.</p>
<p>But now, today, wanting to feel a little sorry for himself for a hundred reasons he could only half-name, he chose to walk on foot back into Muggle London to the nearest Tube station.</p>
<p>There was a peculiar loneliness to being on the Underground at rush hour, crowded by strangers who studiously didn’t make eye contact with each other. Once he ha wondered if anyone ever noticed his Auror robes under his coat, but knew no tired end-of-workday stranger would want to say anything to a fellow tired worker, not in the six short stops home.</p>
<p>The flat he had moved into was in an unassuming Muggle building with a brusque landlord who didn’t seem particularly interested in Harry beyond the fact he had some kind of job to pay rent with and wasn’t the type to play loud music at all hours. The building was old, divided neatly into six flats, with Harry’s on the ground floor in the back.</p>
<p>It had a prime view of the alley from one side, and of a brick wall from the other.</p>
<p>He was distracted with rummaging through his coat pockets for his key and nearly stepped on the box in front of his door.</p>
<p>It was wrapped in brown paper and bore the stamp of the wizarding postal service in the upper left corner. Harry immediately recognized the handwriting on his name and address and the several earnest messages of <em>FRAGILE</em> and <em>HANDLE WITH CARE</em>.</p>
<p>Smiling, he took the box inside.</p>
<p>Tearing back the brown paper, he found a Christmas box patterned with holly, pine boughs, mistletoe, poinsettias, amaryllis. Harry lifted off the lid and pulled out a potted plant and a gold envelope with a letter inside:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Harry,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Happy Christmas! OK, I know. I KNOW it’s January now. Sorry, I promise next year I’ll get things out on time. (Keep this letter to show me next year when I forget again.)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I hope you’re doing alright all considered. I heard about you and Ginny of course, but knew you had more than enough people swooping in on you to ask you how you were feeling, etc, etc. And then of course, got busy and all with the autumn half term exams. Never thought it would take SO LONG to grade sixty third years’ attempts to grow Devil’s Snare from seeds. (Not well. It did not go well. I fear I made somewhat of a mistake choosing that plant for children. I have never understood Hagrid so well.)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>(In my defense, they were right small in the sprout phase. Till they weren’t.)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ron said you got a place of your own, but didn’t seem to be able to answer ANY questions about what kind of sunlight it gets or how much moisture is in the air (and suggested “normal people don’t notice that kind of thing”???), but he did mention it was in a Muggle neighborhood so I thought I ought not send you anything what might concern your neighbors.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I bred this plant myself, actually. I know it’s not much to look at, but I figured I’d err on the side of caution and give you something as doesn’t take much care. As long as you don’t keep it in complete and total darkness and water it at least once a month, it will be perfectly happy.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’m not trying to imply you can’t be trusted to care for a houseplant, of course.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>(Although I DO remember how you were at Herbology, so maybe I AM. Sorry??)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Long story short: thought this might brighten up your new place.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>If you ever get out my way, let me know and first round is on me at Three Broomsticks. Give my best to James, Albus, and Lily!</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>(They must be getting so big since last I saw them. We ought to all make plans to get together again, maybe over the summer.)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>ANYROAD JUST REALIZED I’M FIVE MINUTES LATE TO A LESSON MUST GO</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Neville</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The plant had thick spongy leaves in a pale not-quite-green color, and Harry noticed a slight bluish bioluminescence to the edges when he set it on the bookshelf in one of the dimmer corners of his sitting room.</p>
<p>He was tentatively prodding it with one fingertip, half-expecting it to do something in response, when the mobile phone in his coat pocket began to ring.</p>
<p>“Hey, Hermione,” he said, “so about this paperwork thing—”</p>
<p>“I know, I know. I wanted to tell you myself, but I had to make sure that package got to you before someone had a chance to go asking around about where it had gone.”</p>
<p>“Where d’you think they’re going to think it <em>went</em>? Someone’s bound to notice, hey, those things we needed <em>Draco Malfoy</em> to sign aren’t where they used to be.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take responsibility for it and Shacklebolt’s going to back me up if needed. It’s the right call, Harry. You know it is. Can you even imagine them sending, oh, almost any other Auror out there to knock on his door? Just picture how that would go.”</p>
<p>Harry swallowed. “Going out of our usual jurisdiction to get something from a… from a fugitive Death Eater.” He sank onto the couch with a heavy sigh and took off his glasses. Placing them on the coffee table, he leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his eyes in tired frustration. “Not that that’s what he is. I mean. He <em>is</em>. Sort of. But not like that… I mean. It’s <em>Malfoy</em>. It’s more complicated than just <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“Right,” Hermione agreed briskly, “that’s why it’s got to be you. Because you think it’s complicated.”</p>
<p>Harry groaned. “I don’t recall telling you I agreed to this.”</p>
<p>“Terry told me you didn’t say no.”</p>
<p>“When did they say that?”</p>
<p>“I spoke with Terry before calling you. I wanted to find out what they’d told you. They said you didn’t say no and that you took the envelope. Harry,” Hermione said earnestly, “it’s got to be you. When Terry told me yesterday that the Aurors had learned the seizure of the estate wasn’t entirely legal anymore—”</p>
<p>“Wait. Wait,” Harry broke in. “<em>Terry</em> told <em>you</em>? <em>Yesterday</em>?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Hermione said, not seeming to understand the question, “so I did some digging and was able to find out what the plan was to fix <em>that</em> oversight. And so of course I had to intercept it. I couldn’t let them just send—I don’t know. McLaggen. <em>Whoever</em>.” She paused. “Shacklebolt agrees with me, you know. Well. He’s not convinced <em>you</em> should go, but he agrees we should avoid some kind of headline about an Auror tracking down a long-missing Death Eater. He agrees it should be done as quietly as possible.”</p>
<p>“Boot gave me the impression this was all coming from <em>you</em>,” Harry pressed. “They said they <em>happened</em> to run into you grabbing a sandwich at the café and you <em>happened</em> to have the paperwork with you, but you were worried you wouldn’t get a chance to get to me because you had a lot of meetings this afternoon, so you gave it to them and asked them to pass it alo—”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>Harry</em>,” Hermione interrupted. “Harry, all that sounded <em>plausible</em> to you?”</p>
<p>“I, er… Yes?”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>Harry</em>,” Hermione said again, laughing a little. “Never change.”</p>
<p>Harry glowered at that, but couldn’t quite find the good scathing retort he was sure he should have.</p>
<p>“That’s the nice thing about you,” Hermione continued. “Your best path is always a straight line, and you’ve always been very, ah, <em>trusting</em>.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like a euphemism for <em>gullible</em>.”</p>
<p>“I was trying to be kind. I thought it might be rubbing it in to point out that you’re sometimes not the most observant person I’ve ever met.”</p>
<p>“So you’re, what, using Boot for information about the Aurors?”</p>
<p>Hermione was quiet for a moment before answering. “Well, I guess it’s too late to keep you in the dark,” she decided, “although they were worried you might turn them in if anyone questioned you. But I wouldn’t say I’m <em>using </em>Terry. I would say they’re an old classmate whose feelings about several matters match mine, and is therefore more than willing to help keep me informed about what’s happening, because God knows Abernathy isn’t communicating everything he’s doing to the Minister’s office. He’s of a very ‘tell them what they need to know and nothing else’ mindset, it seems.”</p>
<p>Harry turned that over in his mind. “Is that…? Is that the reason why Boot keeps disappearing for an hour and a half for lunch on days they go to that one Muggle café several blocks out of the way?”</p>
<p>Hermione started laughing again. “<em>Oh</em>. Oh, <em>Harry</em>. I’m sorry, I’m just—Terry said you didn’t suspect a thing, and I didn’t <em>believe</em> them, but…”</p>
<p>“You’re not making me feel great here, you know.” Harry flopped back on the couch to stare up at the ceiling. “Planning to top it off by implying that maybe I’m not cut out to be an Auror?”</p>
<p>“Nope, I’m not having <em>that</em> conversation until <em>after</em> you’ve gone to see Malfoy. Please stay an Auror at least until then.”</p>
<p>Harry was quiet for a long minute. “It’s not going to be easy. Or pleasant.”</p>
<p>“No, it’s not.”</p>
<p>“He’s not going to be happy to see me. It’s going to be quite a nasty surprise for him.”</p>
<p>“It is, yes.”</p>
<p>“And they can’t just have someone go to Azkaban and get his father to do it instead?” Harry asked. “Seems like that’d be the easiest way, instead of having to track him down to all ends of the Earth.”</p>
<p>Hermione sighed. “No,” she said. “Lucius Malfoy definitely <em>has</em> lost his claim to the property. That much is documented. But it also hasn’t legally passed ownership to anyone else, so by default, it <em>technically</em> still belongs to, well, the next in line of succession.”</p>
<p>Harry studied a faint discolored patch on the ceiling above him. “I don’t suppose,” he said slowly, “you considered giving him <em>back</em> the property, if he has a legal right to claim it?”</p>
<p>She sighed at that, long and sad and so very weary. “I don’t get to make that call, Harry. I don’t have that kind of authority. All I can do is try to make these kinds of things happen as gently as I can. And even <em>that’s</em> not in my jurisdiction. I’m fully expecting someone to come after me on this, but it seemed… It seemed worth it. It seemed like the closest I could get to doing the right thing by Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“Seeing me isn’t going to rub salt in about a hundred old wounds?”</p>
<p>“You’re the only one I trust to do it. You’re a good man.”</p>
<p>“Boot said I might be the only Auror who would treat Malfoy like a person.”</p>
<p>“Terry’s very insightful,” Hermione concurred.</p>
<p>Harry screwed up his face at the twinge of loyalty to Ron that pressed him to ask his next question: “So you’ve been having a lot of secret lunches with them then?”</p>
<p>“<em>Professionally</em>, yes. And really just a secret from <em>you</em>, because of—Because of the whole entire <em>everything</em> about the whole Auror situation.”</p>
<p>“So Ron knows.”</p>
<p>“Ron can’t keep a secret from <em>you</em>, Harry. You know that.” Hermione sighed. “I don’t know what you’re worried about here, but you don’t need to, and—Oh, shoot. Okay. I’ve got to go, I just heard Ron get the door, so they’re all here for dinner. I need to… I need to get going, but <em>please</em>, Harry. Please go. As soon as you can.”</p>
<p>“All right,” Harry said. “I was going to. I just needed to, I dunno, register my objections, I s’pose.”</p>
<p>“Consider them registered, Harry. I understand. I wish everything wasn’t still like this.”</p>
<p>“Me too. Tell the kids hi from me, okay? And that I’m looking forward to having them over next weekend?”</p>
<p>“Of course. Bye, Harry. It’s Friday night. Try not to stay in feeling sorry for yourself.”</p>
<p>“I’ll take that under consideration. Bye, Hermione.”</p>
<p>As much as Harry wanted to consider the merit of Hermione’s parting advice, he found himself more willing to acknowledge the fact that he’d spent the last few months really perfecting his ability to feel sorry for himself.</p>
<p><em>Anyway</em>, he thought peevishly, <em>who would I even hang out with tonight? My best friends are both having dinner with my ex-wife. Neville’s at Hogwarts, I haven’t been in touch with Dean since who-knows-when, Seamus is back in Belfast—not to mention the fact that we both agreed things were getting too close to “drinking buddy” status a couple years back—and I don’t want to call George up and say, “Hey, I’m lonely because I divorced your little sister, take pity on me.”</em></p>
<p>She<em> divorced </em>you<em>, remember? </em>a small voice in his head reminded him helpfully.</p>
<p><em>But it’s not really </em>your<em> fault, remember?</em></p>
<p>“Argh,” Harry announced aloud to his empty flat. He got up and dug the envelope of paperwork out of his satchel.</p>
<p>Sliding the sheaf of parchment forms out, he read through endless dense legalese—<em>the party of the first part retains ownership, the party of the second part honors the agreement that the party of the first part initiated on 24 May 1998</em>—filled with names that felt like echoes of a whole life long gone.</p>
<p><em>The Malfoy Manor and associated estate</em>. Harry could still picture it, the dim endless labyrinth of halls; the sheer opulence, weighty and oppressive, in gilt and dark polished wood, in tapestries and carpets woven with serpentine tangles of vines, in marble statuary and thick stained glass; and more than anything else, the cloying choke of the air thick with dark magic, layer over layer, built up like sediment over too many generations. The way it crackled in his fingertips like static and made him feel a breathless and dizzy and a little bit powerful.</p>
<p><em>Draco Lucius Malfoy</em>. At that, he tried to quell the memories—for what seemed like the hundredth time since the afternoon—of the haughty toss of a head with ice-pale hair catching the Great Hall candlelight, a cool silvery laugh cutting across the lawn, a lost haunted expression when nobody was looking, which turned cool and distant as soon as he caught Harry watching him again.</p>
<p><em>Lucius Abraxas Malfoy</em>. Sometimes, though all the things that crept into Harry’s nightmares—all the memories so much worse than this one—Harry would remember most vividly the first time he saw the man: the chill he carried with him, the same quiet danger that Harry had learned all too well in the loaded silence that smothered a room in the endless moments before his own uncle would erupt.</p>
<p>Harry pulled out the scrap of paper that bore Draco Malfoy’s current address in Hermione’s neat self-assured handwriting. He studied it for a minute. He memorized it; he tried to will it to resolve this task for him.</p>
<p>And then he pulled out his laptop and bought a seat on the earliest flight leaving Heathrow the next morning.</p>
<p>He didn’t stop to compare airlines or prices. He didn’t stop to consider a return flight; that was—as so many things often were—a problem for future him to worry about when the time came.</p>
<p>He dug out an old overnight bag from the back of his closet and filled it with socks, pants, slacks and jeans, shirts, jumpers. He glanced at his Auror robes, but left them where he’d tossed them over a chair when he got home from work.</p>
<p>They would be a mistake to wear for Malfoy.</p>
<p>They weren’t something Harry was sure he was comfortable wearing at <em>all</em> now, Malfoy or no.</p>
<p>And then, of course, that left him with the thrum of <em>what’s next</em> pulsing impatiently in the air. There wasn’t much left he could get done on impulse now.</p>
<p>He sprawled on his couch with his laptop and opened and closed a browser window several times, trying to settle the scattered thoughts that crowded his mind beyond his control.</p>
<p>Draco Lucius Malfoy, spreading his toast with too much butter and too much jam, but not eating it, especially not if anyone looked at him, even Crabbe and Goyle.</p>
<p>Draco Lucius Malfoy, plucking the downy fluff off the base of his quill feathers with nervous fingers before he could start to write with them.</p>
<p>Draco Lucius Malfoy, glaring daggers of ice at Harry across classrooms, halls, the lawn, the lake’s edge, the Quidditch pitch.</p>
<p>Draco Lucius Malfoy, cracking open his untouchable facade to reveal something soft and wounded beneath, for just a moment, when his father said something belittling to him, looking down with casual contempt at the son he purported to love and claim pride in.</p>
<p>Draco Lucius Malfoy, choking back the gasping sobs that wracked his thin frame as he—</p>
<p>Harry balled and unballed his fingers. He wanted to punch something, or throw something, or maybe scream. Instead, he took a long deep breath the way Hermione had once suggested he do and let it out slowly.</p>
<p>He ran again through the list of people he couldn’t turn to tonight.</p>
<p>
  <em>Stop feeling sorry for yourself.</em>
</p>
<p>He tucked his knees up to his chest and pulled his laptop back close to him and pulled up AOL Instant Messenger.</p>
<p>
  <em>Are we really going to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this?</em>
</p>
<p><em>Shut up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91: </strong>hey</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was no reply for almost three full minutes, and then:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal: </strong>uh</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal: </strong>hi</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> whats up</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry’s eyes went wide as he realized he should have figured out an excuse for starting this conversation <em>before</em> he initiated it. <em>Damn. Damn it.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> nothing</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> just wondering, you’ve been to america yeah?</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> ...yes? why?</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> what’s it like?</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> why? u emirgating?</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> emigrating*</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> what</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> no</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> what</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> i was just wondering</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> curious</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> no reason</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> ……</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> u ok?</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> i’m FINE</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> um</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> sure</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> sounds fine 2 me right there</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> the most fine</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> fine people def say their FINE like that</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> ugh, you’re the worst</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No answer.</p>
<p>“Bloody <em>hell</em>,” Harry muttered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> sorry</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> no</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> didn’t mean that</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> eh. its ok. prolly deserve it.</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> srsly tho. ur not ok, r u?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A few seconds passed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> imean. other than being FINE</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> complicated</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> no, never mind</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> bored. mostly bored.</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> ...ok</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> bored here too</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> pub?</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> sure. why not.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You must be so <em>fucking</em> lonely, Potter,” Harry told himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> normal pub tho.</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> course. don’t want to be around any wizards right now anyway.</p>
<p><strong>1nil2Arsenal:</strong> bird in hand, half an hour?</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> alright, see you there</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The Bird in Hand was a shabby little pub whose furniture looked as though it hadn’t been replaced since it opened sometime back in the early ‘60s, or the wood flooring refinished where it was worn away with decades of footsteps in the same repeated patterns. It didn’t have a sleek standardized menu professionally printed like so many interchangeable pubs in London now had, or one of those new jukeboxes with a digital library and credit card reader.</p>
<p>When Harry walked in, he scanned the cozy careworn interior until he spotted a broad, heavy young man feeding coins into the old jukebox beside the bar.</p>
<p>“Hey, Dudley.”</p>
<p>Dudley pushed a couple buttons on the jukebox and replied, “Hey, Harry. Any requests?”</p>
<p>Harry leaned over the jukebox beside his cousin and flipped through the cards as “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” broke through the quiet of the pub. “E thirteen,” he said.</p>
<p>Dudley let out a short laugh at that, but pushed the buttons anyway. “Right. ‘Course. Radiohead, that well-known band for people who’re definitely doing well and definitely not so afraid to be alone that they’re getting in touch with <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m not <em>afraid</em> to be alone,” Harry replied, more waspishly than he’d meant to.</p>
<p>“’Course not.” Dudley waved to the barman. “Two pints of lager and some chips, Dave? Ta.”</p>
<p>After sitting down at the small table in the back corner, Dudley elaborated, “You don’t get in touch unless something’s wrong but you don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>Harry studied him. “When did <em>you</em> start getting perceptive?”</p>
<p>Dudley took a long drink of beer and shrugged.</p>
<p>Doing the same, Harry commented, “All right, fine. Why don’t we skip to the bit where I don’t want to talk about it, then?”</p>
<p>“Not like I’d know what you were going on about anyway.”</p>
<p>“Right.”</p>
<p>“Kind of the point, isn’t it.”</p>
<p>They looked a mismatched pair sitting across from each other, one of them small and slender, with a wiry athletic frame, and the other much larger, tall and strong and fat. One in a turtleneck jumper and narrow-leg dark jeans, in trendy faux-retro glasses with thick rectangular frames of black plastic; the other in a well-worn brown leather jacket and knit cap over short brown hair. Dudley had a warehouse job, last Harry had heard. It was a good steady job, but it sounded as though his parents were disappointed in him for not doing something in an office, something with a briefcase and business meetings, something like his father.</p>
<p>“Well, at least you don’t have a broken hand this time,” Dudley commented.</p>
<p>Harry blinked in confusion. “What?”</p>
<p>“Last time I saw you. Eight or nine months back, maybe more? You had a broken hand.”</p>
<p>“<em>Oh</em>.” Harry ducked his head and focused on watching the small bubbles in the foam sliding down the inside of his pint glass. “Right, I got that fixed the next morning. I forgot that was when I—When we last… Sorry. Yeah. I see what you mean. About me getting in touch.”</p>
<p>Dudley took a handful of chips. “What was it again? Lost a fistfight with a brick wall?”</p>
<p>“Plaster,” Harry retorted.</p>
<p>“Oh, sure, totally different matter, then.”</p>
<p>“I forgot you knew about that,” Harry admitted, embarrassed now.</p>
<p>“Eh, runs in the family,” Dudley said, unbothered. “Least it was just a wall.” He took another swallow of lager and a handful of chips, but then pushed the basket towards Harry. “Eat up. So what you done this time?”</p>
<p>“Who says <em>I</em> did something?”</p>
<p>“Your life history?” Dudley suggested.</p>
<p>“I—Okay. Fair.” Harry took a couple chips and ate them one at a time. “I got a divorce.”</p>
<p>“Just <em>now</em>?”</p>
<p>“Almost five months ago. Couldn’t remember if I’d mentioned.”</p>
<p>“Haven’t talked to you since the hand incident,” Dudley replied. He cocked his head back in the general direction of the jukebox. “That why the ‘Fake Plastic Trees?’”</p>
<p>“Oh. No. No, just one of the only songs on there I know.”</p>
<p>Dudley shrugged, having decided years ago not to taunt Harry for the gaps he had in his knowledge of Muggle culture, since Dudley felt like that might be at least a little his fault. “How the kids taking it?” he asked instead.</p>
<p>“They’re okay. I mean, it sucks and it’s hard, but they’re going to be fine. It’s probably kind of a relief for them, honestly. It was all getting a bit tense by the end.”</p>
<p>He nodded. “What was it, James and Lily? And the other one in the middle?”</p>
<p>“Albus Severus.”</p>
<p>Dudley let out a low whistle. “That’s a <em>name</em>? For a <em>child</em>?”</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>, that’s a name.”</p>
<p>“You pick it out yourself?”</p>
<p>“Yes. I did.”</p>
<p>“Were you—Were you drunk at the time?”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>,” Harry said, shooting Dudley a hard look.</p>
<p>Dudley raised his eyebrows with doubt at that, but said nothing.</p>
<p>“Your name is <em>Dudley</em>,” Harry reminded him.</p>
<p>“Which is a human name for a human person,” Dudley pointed out.</p>
<p>“So is Albus Severus!”</p>
<p>“Sounds like the Latin name of a fungus.” Dudley shook his head, then contemplated Harry’s news. “Only four months ago? Took you <em>that</em> long to split up?”</p>
<p>“You’re supposed to pretend to be surprised to hear it didn’t work out.”</p>
<p>Dudley chuckled a little. “Y’know, I was in just one school play once. I was nine. They cast me as a boulder and stuck me at the back of the stage ‘cause they couldn’t think what else to do with me. So I’m pretty sure I’m nothing <em>near</em> a good enough actor to pretend surprise at <em>that</em> news.”</p>
<p>Harry smiled despite himself. “So does that mean you’re not about to ask me how I’m holding up, oh no, you <em>poor</em> thing, how <em>awful</em>, tell me <em>everything</em> and spare no details?”</p>
<p>Dudley made a face. “Not really my strong suit. If you really want that, you’re gonna have to talk me through my lines.” Leaning back in his chair, he assessed his cousin across the table: “You’re holding up like shit, you’re not really a poor thing, it’s probably at <em>least</em> half your fault, and I don’t really need details since even <em>I</em> could see it was only a matter of time.”</p>
<p>“Wow, where’d you learn to sugarcoat things?”</p>
<p>“Not my job. Everyone else does enough of that for you.” Dudley took some more chips and added, “It’s nice, in a way, that you didn’t actually grow up to be a saint. Makes me feel a little better about things. Like you’re not too good for me to be allowed to talk to.” He caught the eye of Dave the barman and signaled that they needed more chips. “Not that you’re not better’n me. But at least I can pretend we’re at a halfway level playing field in our own way.”</p>
<p>Harry was quiet, thinking that over. “It’s very tiring,” he admitted, “having to always be a good person. Always the hero, the role model, nice young man, always doing the right thing even when it’s impossible to even tell what that is anymore. Going out and seeing witches and wizards in shops and pubs giving me that <em>look</em>. That look like they think they’re being subtle, sneaking glances at me, trying to decide whether to say anything to me about me being <em>Harry Potter</em>, telling themselves that they’re a stranger and it might be rude, and then doing it anyway as soon as they notice I’ve noticed them trying not to stare at me.” Taking another deep drink, he mused, “That’s why I’m glad you’d rather meet in places like this. At least when people do that to me in Muggle shops and pubs, on the Tube, walking along the street, it’s almost never because they recognize me as Harry Potter. So at least it’s not about <em>that</em> when they decide to be rude and say something. Small consolation, maybe.”</p>
<p>“Normal people <em>look</em> at you?” Dudley asked. “And say<em> what</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry let out a short laugh of surprise at Dudley’s lost expression. “God, we really do have very different lives, don’t we?” he asked. And then in imitation of dozens of strangers, who always had the same fake-polite-apologetic tone to cover the words that came out in a nervous rush that pushed a little <em>too</em> hard: “Sorry, I just have to ask—Sorry. I was just wondering where you were from? No, I mean, <em>before</em> London. No, all right, your parents then? Or your family. Before that… Oh. Oh, is that it? Oh. Sorry. I suppose I thought—It was the green eyes, the green eyes are what threw me off. It’s quite unusual, isn’t it? Ethnically, I mean? You know, because of genetics? <em>That’s</em> why I was curious, of course. <em>That’s</em> why I just <em>had</em> to ask.” He took another drink from his pint and rolled his eyes. “It’s <em>not</em>, by the way. Quite unusual, that is. But it’s an excuse.”</p>
<p>Dudley stared. “Christ.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. But at least nobody’s trying to tell me I’m the savior of the known world while I’m just trying to buy a packet of crisps.”</p>
<p>Grimacing slightly, Dudley said, “Sorry, I’m still… I’m just thinking of some of the stuff Mum said when we were kids. About your dad. And you. And—I feel like I should apologize for that too. Just add that to the long list. How I didn’t realize… All those vague hinting remarks I never knew were a little racist in the empty spaces of the things she didn’t say aloud.”</p>
<p>Harry raised his eyebrows. “A <em>little</em>,” he agreed, in tone that meant <em>more than just a little</em>. “But Aunt Petunia was very good at <em>suggesting</em> things without right out <em>saying</em> them.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’ve learned that by now. In all kinds of ways.”</p>
<p>Harry finished his pint. “Don’t worry—I really, <em>really</em> don’t want to talk about them tonight. We’ve covered <em>that</em> enough.”</p>
<p>There was still more left to say. There would always be more left to say between them.</p>
<p>But neither of them was good at pouring everything out at once, so they were building something slowly, in fits and starts and small careful steps, over hesitant years, knowing that they were already far closer to family than either ever believed they were capable of becoming.</p>
<p>Dudley nodded, understanding. “So. America?”</p>
<p>“Oh. Er, right. Never mind, that’s not important. I’ve got a trip, for work. That’s all. Was wondering what it was like there.”</p>
<p>“You’ve never been?”</p>
<p>“I don’t get out much.”</p>
<p>“What part of America? It’s a big place.”</p>
<p>“I’m flying to Portland tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“You’re flying all the way to <em>Oregon</em>?”</p>
<p>“Portland, Maine.”</p>
<p>“Still,” Dudley said, “they can’t just—<em>zzzzzzzp</em>—teleport you? Beam me up, Wizard Scotty?”</p>
<p>“Not exactly, no. Anyway, if I went through wizarding transport, someone might notice. <em>Percy</em> might notice, and then <em>say</em> something without realizing.” Harry winced at the idea. “It’s not exactly an official assignment, y’see? So I’d rather not let anyone know where I’m off to, not until after it’s too late for them to do much.”</p>
<p>Dudley opened his mouth to ask a question but then thought better of it. “I only went to Jacksonville in August for two weeks when I was eighteen,” he said. “That’s really not gonna help me tell you what Maine is like in January, except maybe ‘the exact opposite of Florida in August.’ The main things I learned were about alligators, and keg stands, and that maybe running off to an open amateur wrestling competition with your mates isn’t actually going to be a path to wealth and riches and a new life nowhere near your old one.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> can do a keg stand?”</p>
<p>Dudley laughed. “No, sure can’t, that’s the main thing I learned about ‘em. Oh, and that needing stitches in America is <em>expensive</em>.”</p>
<p>“All valuable life wisdom.”</p>
<p>“Anytime, cuz. That’s what I’m known for.”</p>
<p>There was a brief lull in the conversation as they got their second order of chips and another round of lager, and then Dudley asked, “You going to start seeing new people now?”</p>
<p>“Isn’t it a little soon for that?”</p>
<p>“Dunno. I get the impression that your marriage was half-over not long after Baby Two. What’s-his-name. The fungus kid.” Through a mouthful of chips, Dudley elaborated, “When you’ve got a car sunk in the mud, you don’t keep spinning the wheels like that’s the same thing as keeping driving.”</p>
<p>“Deep,” Harry commented. “But I was told today that I’m nowhere near ready to date again.”</p>
<p>“Just have it off with someone then. You don’t need to make it a <em>thing</em>. Just find someone cute who doesn’t mind a scrawny mess past his prime and—”</p>
<p>“Past my <em>prime</em>?” Harry cut in. “I’m <em>twenty-seven</em>, Dudley.”</p>
<p>“So? You’re divorced with three kids. Plus you peaked when you were twelve.”</p>
<p>“<em>Twelve</em>?” An indignant note pitched Harry’s voice upward.</p>
<p>“That was when you had a sword fight with a giant snake, right? You’re never going to be cooler than <em>that</em>,” Dudley pointed out reasonably. “So find some girl who doesn’t know what being Harry Potter means and just, y’know, have <em>fun</em> for once in your life.” Dudley paused. “Or find some guy if you’re into that. I don’t know your life.”</p>
<p>Harry thought about it. “Maybe I will.”</p>
<p>Dudley stared, about three different kinds of surprise crossing his features. “Maybe you’re open to starting to date again? Or maybe you’re open to finding a <em>guy</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugged down into his shoulders, feeling like he’d admitted too much now. “I guess maybe I can’t say I’ve not <em>never</em> thought about it,” he mumbled.</p>
<p>Dudley frowned as he parsed that sentence. “So… you’ve… thought about it?”</p>
<p>“I still like women too.”</p>
<p>“Sure. Both is an option. You’re allowed that.” Dudley was looking at his cousin with faint awe. “I didn’t think—I just didn’t want to assume that because you went off and married the first girl you were serious about, that meant you were on an all-women-only track for life. But I figured you <em>were</em>. So you’re what, bisexual?”</p>
<p>“Bisexual,” Harry repeated. “Yeah. Bisexual.”</p>
<p>Dudley tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes as though analyzing Harry. “I can’t tell if this is news to you or not.”</p>
<p>Harry studied his beer to avoid eye contact with Dudley. “Dunno. I had one conversation once, with Ginny, years ago now. Said I thought I might be bi, but then… I dunno. I didn’t want to make it a <em>thing</em>, like I might be wanting to experiment around, or like it meant I wasn’t interested in being with only <em>her</em>, and then if I’m happily married and not looking to change that, why would I bring it up? Why would anyone need to know? What does it matter?”</p>
<p>“It matters.”</p>
<p>“Maybe. Maybe not.”</p>
<p>“Well. Anyhow. Matters to me now.”</p>
<p>They both fell quiet then, drinking their beer.</p>
<p>Then Dudley laughed ruefully. “I was just thinking,” he said, “can you imagine Dad’s reaction if I casually slip into conversation, ‘Oh, Harry’s bi now, just so you know?’”</p>
<p>“Go for it,” Harry told him. “Not like he can do a thing to me now. Use me as a test run for how that kind of news goes over.”</p>
<p>Dudley swallowed. “I… I don’t actually want to hear what he’d say,” he admitted quietly.</p>
<p>“Because you already have a good enough idea what it might be.”</p>
<p>“I can probably just avoid the subject until he dies of old age, right?” Dudley joked, but his smile wavered slightly and his voice was empty. “Just let Mum try to set me up with friends’ daughters for the rest of time.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know how—with that on top of <em>everything else</em>—I don’t know how you can still stand to talk to them.”</p>
<p>“One phone call,” Dudley told Harry. “First Sunday of the month. They get an hour and then I’ve got to go, sorry, I have somewhere to be. I’m not brave, Harry. I’m not you. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Harry reached over and closed one hand firmly over Dudley’s. It might have been one of the first times they’d touched as adults; part of Harry still felt that Dudley was dangerous to touch, something huge and threatening to be shied away from.</p>
<p>“I wish someday you’d call me up and tell me you were never speaking to them again. I wish what they did to me was <em>more</em> than enough to earn that. I wish what they did to <em>you</em> didn’t make you afraid to leave them. I wish I could help you build a bridge for the first time in our lives, but I’ve got to make sure—for me—that it’s still just a drawbridge. Because I know what’s still somewhere on your side.”</p>
<p>The confession came out of Harry’s mouth before he could think about it, the words marching out with an even calm he hadn’t known he felt. These things had so long ago become the simple clean facts of what it meant to accept his cousin’s olive branch that they no longer felt tragic or hard to Harry.</p>
<p>Dudley, however, looked to be reckoning with ideas he hadn’t tried to face.</p>
<p>“I honestly never expected you to even want to talk to me again even a <em>little</em>,” he confessed. “I figured all I could do was try to apologize one time and then let you tell me to get bent, and I’d deserve it and then never hear from you again.”</p>
<p>“Well, tough luck on that plan. Apparently you’re stuck with me calling you up when I’ve punched a wall or done something stupid, when you’re basically the only person I’m okay with disappointing.”</p>
<p>“I don’t have the right to be <em>disappointed</em> in you, Harry, <em>Christ</em>.”</p>
<p>“Also you don’t think of me as Harry Potter.”</p>
<p>“Nah, I only barely know what that even means. You’re just the other angry kid our house fucked up, the one who drew the short straw.”</p>
<p>Harry smiled a little at that. “Thanks,” he said, “for that, and also for managing to distract me from everything I didn’t want to think about by bringing up <em>different</em> things I didn’t want to think about.”</p>
<p>“Oh, hell. Sorry. How about I just offer to help you chat up some girls who have no idea you’re a famous wizard?”</p>
<p>“What, you’re not going to help me chat up any guys?”</p>
<p>Dudley started laughing. “If you find any who might be interested and <em>also</em> figure out how to ask one out,” he said, “please let me know.”</p>
<p>Mentally scrolling through every person he knew, Harry concluded, “I see your point. Presenting company excepted, I know exactly one queer—er, wizard.” Harry wasn’t sure whether <em>wizard</em> was the right word for Terry anymore; he felt thoughtless for never having asked. “And that’s it. Out of everyone in my whole life. That’s pretty sparse options.”</p>
<p>“I’m not above dating a wizard.”</p>
<p>Harry choked on a laugh at that. “I can just <em>imagine</em>,” he said, “you show up at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s with not just a <em>boyfriend</em> on your arm, but a <em>wizard</em> boyfriend. Anyway, Terry Boot wouldn’t qualify for that. They fit the <em>wizard</em> bit, I s’pose, but I reckon they wouldn’t be a <em>boyfriend</em>.” He took a drink and licked the foam from his lips. “Not that I’m suggesting,” he clarified, “you ought to date Terry Boot.”</p>
<p>Dudley looked into his half-empty glass, a sad smile on his face. “If I ever have the guts to try a stunt like that and bring some bloke to meet Mum and Dad,” he said, “I’ll be sure to invite you too so you can watch.”</p>
<p>“I’ll bring popcorn,” Harry promised.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry, pleasantly faintly tipsy on three pints of lager and a not-full stomach of a half-basket of chips, walked along the quiet night street with his cousin, who was big and carried himself with a don’t-fuck-with-me bearing.</p>
<p>In the pub, the two of them had moved swiftly on from uneasy personal topics to the merits of Quidditch versus football, finally settling on a middle ground of agreeing on rugby as the second-best sport. Dudley dismissed Harry’s job as boring when he heard the word <em>paperwork</em> and Harry returned the favor for Dudley at the words <em>shipments</em> and <em>forklift</em>. Harry mentioned getting into Muggle music properly and found that they listened to almost none of the same bands. Dudley tried to sell Harry on the finer points of <em>Point Break</em>; Harry just repeated the words <em>Patrick Swayze</em> and <em>Keanu Reeves</em> and raised his eyebrows, unfooled.</p>
<p>They found a shawarma stand still open and bought two chicken pita wraps and Coca-Cola. Harry ate half of his and gave the rest to Dudley, as Dudley insisted on seeing Harry home.</p>
<p>“I’m not in any danger,” Harry informed him. “I’ve <em>killed</em> people, Dudley, I can defend myself.”</p>
<p>Deciding to gloss over what Harry just said, Dudley just reminded him that he’s still <em>tiny,</em> what are you, seven stone? Eight? <em>You look so easy to mug, cuz. Miniature git in a turtleneck and glasses.</em></p>
<p>But his voice had a fondness mixed in with the sarcasm.</p>
<p>Then they said their awkward goodbyes in front of Harry’s building, neither of them sure yet what the protocol was for parting ways with the only family you care anything for, but still won’t hug.</p>
<p>Harry went back inside to his dark empty flat. All that was left now was to wait for morning and keep telling himself that it would all turn out in the end.</p>
<p><em>Don’t think about it now. Figure it out as you go</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Ghosts" by The Head And The Heart.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Three</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Whoever you are</em><br/>
<em>You have a thousand reasons not to trust</em><br/>
<em>Whoever I am</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry Potter had never been on an airplane.</p>
<p>It didn’t seem like it could be that difficult or complicated; <em>Dudley</em> had taken an impulse flight all the way to Florida as a teenager, after all.</p>
<p>Just follow the signs, get your ticket, do whatever they tell you to.</p>
<p>Thank Merlin and God and anyone else who might be listening that Hermione had once forced Harry and Ron to get Muggle passports because “you never know when you’ll need one.”</p>
<p>And yet Harry realized there were so many things he hadn’t known to be warned about.</p>
<p>The way the air felt stale and artificial in the airplane cabin, as though it had been recycled one too many times.</p>
<p>How close each row of seats was to the row in front of it. He was grateful for the fact that he’d never gotten particularly tall, so his knees could fit comfortably. Until they reclined the seat all the way into him, which seemed quite a design flaw.</p>
<p>The businessman who thought Harry looked like someone who might need an impromptu lecture on investment bonds and definitely <em>not</em> need any of their shared armrest.</p>
<p>Whoever it was that decided that a Trans-Atlantic flight was a good place for a baby with a seemingly unending list of miseries to share loudly with its captive audience.</p>
<p>Until a certain point six hours into the flight, Harry had never before thought: <em>This baby is my enemy now</em>.</p>
<p>After which he thought the miniature bottles of wine the flight attendants sold were about twice the price and a third the size they ought to be, if they were really intended to help one survive eleven and a half hours trapped in a crowded tin can hurtling through the sky.</p>
<p>Maybe he ought to have taken his chances with Percy and the Department of Magical Transportation after all.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s address was in a place called Ogunquit, about thirty-something miles down the coast from the Portland airport. Harry had brought his broom—shrunk down to fit in his bag—and the invisibility cloak, not quite having the patience to figure out public transportation or the confidence in his ability to drive an unfamiliar rental car on the wrong side of the street in winter.</p>
<p>The broom flight felt mercifully short compared to the endless journey by airplane, but Harry hadn’t quite prepared himself for the cold wind along the coast, even with the warming spell he’d cast on himself before taking off. By the time he landed on a quiet stretch of road at the edge of town, his face had gone a numb from the winter air against it.</p>
<p>There were several inches of snow on the ground, and the wind whipped in sharp with a wet chill from the ocean. Harry packed his broom and cloak back away, turned up the collar of his coat and headed into town.</p>
<p>A couple blocks in, he passed an old white house with green shutters and a row of bare trees around the side garden. The sign out front informed him that it was a bed and breakfast called Orchard House.</p>
<p>Electric candles glowed from the windowsills on either side of the front door, from which hung a wreath made of real pine branches.</p>
<p>It occurred to Harry that he only had a loose idea of how to find the address he was looking for, that it was getting to be late afternoon, and that the sun had already started to set.</p>
<p>He couldn’t wait until tomorrow; he couldn’t imagine being able to stand another night of pretending to sleep while a hundred worst case scenarios played through his head in vivid detail.</p>
<p>He couldn’t wait until tomorrow, but maybe he could get a room first, take a shower, change clothes, and get proper directions from someone so he wasn’t wandering around a small coastal town in the dark.</p>
<p>Harry was greeted inside by a laconic, maternal woman with short pink-streaked gray hair and galoshes, who told him that most of the rooms were available for a good rate.</p>
<p>“It’s the off-season, y’see,” she told him. “So take your pick.”</p>
<p>His room was named after someone called James Baldwin, who he got the feeling he was supposed to have heard of. It was at the top of the stairs across from a room labeled “Anais Nin,” and was a cozy little bedroom with antique furniture, a well-stocked bookcase, and a large bed covered with a patchwork quilt.</p>
<p>As tempting as it was to just collapse backwards onto the bed and fall asleep, Harry instructed himself firmly to take a shower instead.</p>
<p>Feeling clean and almost human again in a fresh set of clothes, he went back downstairs.</p>
<p>Instead of the woman he checked in with, he found another woman with salt-and-pepper hair down to her waist, who smiled broadly at him.</p>
<p>“Ah, Jan told me we actually had a <em>real guest</em> check in,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten what that feels like to have someone stay here. What can I do you for? Harry, was it?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. I was actually hoping I could get directions to this address…” He handed her the slip of paper with Malfoy’s address in Hermione’s handwriting.</p>
<p>“Oh? Oh, let’s see here—That’s not far at all. We’re not a big place here. Just take a right when you walk out the front door, take a left on Main, then keep going down—you’ll pass Bread and Roses—and then take right on Agamenticus, and it should be the first? Second? One of the first left turns off that street. You’ll see a sign. Shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes to walk, if you don’t mind the brisk weather we seem to be having this time of year.” She chuckled at her own joke, then stopped to look at Harry. “Hang on. Is that how you’re going outside?”</p>
<p>Harry looked down at his peacoat and back up at her. “Um… yes?”</p>
<p>She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “And then freeze to death on the road and make me feel guilty for letting you wander out into the night half-dressed like that? Hold on a minute.” She held up a single finger as if that would stop him leaving and hurried back down the hallway.</p>
<p>A minute later, she returned with a red-and-orange striped scarf, hand-knit and well-worn, a little stretched out and misshapen. She wrapped it around him with brisk efficiency, arranging it so he could pull it up to cover his face and ears while still keeping his neck warm. She then presented him with a matching knit cap with a pompom on it and a pair of red mittens.</p>
<p>He thanked her, while promising to himself that he’d take them off again on the walk over, so he wouldn’t look ridiculous knocking on Malfoy’s door.</p>
<p>Then he stepped outside and changed his mind about taking them off.</p>
<p>The walk wasn’t long, but it felt longer with the wind. Yet as he reached the last corner to turn onto the short quiet street where Malfoy lived, he found himself wishing that the route was at least three times farther.</p>
<p>At least far enough for him to come up with something better to say than, <em>Hey, Malfoy, long time, no see, give us your house.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Greetings, Malfoy. I come as an official envoy from the—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hullo, care to sign some paperwork and maybe try to punch me in the face for my trouble?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hi, isn’t this a living nightmare.</em>
</p>
<p>And he was there.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s home was very small, more a tiny cottage than a proper house. Harry couldn’t imagine it having more than two or three rooms inside.</p>
<p>It was old as well, something tired and settled-in about the shape of it, huddled down among the snow-covered shrubs cozied up to its sides. A streetlamp across the way illuminated the house faintly in a buttery glow, the blue clapboard siding, the slate roofing, the wooden shutters painted red, all of them shut and latched over the windows.</p>
<p>A white picket fence divided the yard from the street.</p>
<p>The windows all seemed dark through the thin cracks between the shutter slats, but Harry clumsily undid the iron latch on the gate with his mittened hands and approached the front door anyway.</p>
<p>He still lived here, Harry thought. Or <em>someone</em> did, anyway, because the front walk was freshly cleared of snow, a tidy line of salted flagstones from the gate to the stoop.</p>
<p>Harry knocked.</p>
<p>There was no answer.</p>
<p>He noticed an old brass doorbell button and pressed it, but it didn’t seem to work.</p>
<p>He waited.</p>
<p>And knocked again.</p>
<p>And waited.</p>
<p>And then stepped over to the big shuttered window to the left of the door and tried pressing his eye to one of the cracks, as though he’d be able to see anything but darkness inside. He cupped his hands around his eye like a telescope, which of course made no difference.</p>
<p>“Idiot,” he muttered to himself.</p>
<p>“Excuse me! Can I help you with something?”</p>
<p>The voice came from behind him, and Harry jumped and straightened up as he heard the gate creak back open behind him.</p>
<p>He turned around to face Draco Malfoy.</p>
<p>Malfoy stood at the end of his front walk and froze when he recognized Harry.</p>
<p>“Fucking <em>hell</em>,” he said.</p>
<p>Harry nodded dumbly in agreement. “Yeah,” he replied. “Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.”</p>
<p>For a brief moment, Malfoy seemed to be calculating whether to go after Harry or make a run for it, but then he sighed loudly and continued down his own front walk to his door. He dug a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked his front door.</p>
<p>With a sidelong glance, he beckoned Harry to follow him inside with a short lazy wave of his hand.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Harry blurted out as he came over, “I should have—I dunno. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“God. Don’t make this more painful than you need to,” Malfoy said. “I figured something like this would come again someday. Just—Just come inside where it’s warm and tell me what they want from me when I can actually feel my fingers, all right?”</p>
<p>His voice was heavy with a tired resignation that gave Harry a sharp pang somewhere inside. It was the tone one would take with someone who was merely <em>yet another Auror</em>, someone who didn’t matter as anything more than that anymore. Someone who was just the resurfacing of an old endless chain of inconveniences and indignities and injustices that Malfoy had thought he was long ago done tolerating.</p>
<p>Harry followed Malfoy inside and found himself standing in the threshold of a small sitting room.</p>
<p>It was a narrow space, reaching back to a half-closed pocket door to the tiny kitchen. There was a large simple fireplace on the left-hand wall and a door that might lead to a bedroom across from it on the right. There was a fat faded little loveseat sofa and an old wooden chair whose cane seat was woven in a tight hexagonal pattern, and a couple mismatched side tables, one of which seemed to be acting as a sparse bar cart—vermouth and brandy and a bottle of port—and the other of which held a potted plant and an ashtray of beach glass.</p>
<p>Other than that, the room was dominated by a trio of bookcases along the wall with the fireplace, filled to the brim with what seemed to be a haphazard collection of books. Harry couldn’t quite make out what they were from where he stood in the doorway, but they seemed mostly to be dogeared secondhand paperbacks with covers in a riot of gaudy colors, novels and textbooks and reference guides, some of which bore tattered yellow stickers on their spines declaring “USED” in black capitals. They were, Harry thought, so unlike the rows of neat old volumes in the Malfoy Manor library, all gilt and tooled leather and vellum, lined up in perfect order.</p>
<p><em>I doubt any one of them’s actually ever </em>read<em> a single one</em>, Hermione had murmured to Harry, gazing around at shelves, voice filled with judgment.</p>
<p>Malfoy made no implication that he planned on inviting Harry any further inside. Under the circumstances, he appeared to have deemed all the usual niceties undeserved, so he ignored Harry entirely as he pushed back the hood of his quilted down coat, put his scarf on a hook, pulled off his gloves to stuff them in his coat pockets, and then unzipped the coat and hung it beside the scarf.</p>
<p>After unlacing and kicking off his boots, Malfoy lastly pulled off the gray knit cap he wore. A halo of stray hairs crackled free with static and drifted upward, fine as spidersilk. He wore his hair longer now, pulled back in a low loose bun, from which he tugged out the elastic band. Holding it between his teeth, he tried to smooth back the flyaways. Harry watched; Harry watched Malfoy run the fingers of both fingers through the glossy tumble of ice-blond hair, before pulling it all back again, quick and practiced.</p>
<p>Malfoy appraised Harry coolly. “You’re staying at the Orchard House,” he said.</p>
<p>“Yes, how’d you—?”</p>
<p>“I recognize Jan’s hat and scarf.” He paused. “Are you going to just stand there like that?”</p>
<p>Harry hesitated. “What would you rather I do?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who knows what he’s doing here.”</p>
<p>“You mean <em>you</em> don’t know what <em>you’re</em> doing here?” Harry asked before he could tell himself not to goad Malfoy. <em>This isn’t the way things used to be; you can’t act like it still is.</em></p>
<p>The corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched, just a little, like he might have been tempted for a moment to either smile or sneer. Instead, he just took another weary deep breath and said, “Just—take off your coat or something. I don’t care. I just don’t have all night to wait around for you to figure out why you’re here, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I figured you were going to tell me to get lost and refuse to let me in,” Harry said, shedding his winter wear and hanging everything on the vacant hook on the wall beside Malfoy’s coat and scarf.</p>
<p>“I suppose my sense of self-preservation isn’t what it once was,” he commented casually as he arranged himself in the middle of the small couch, tucking his feet up beside him.</p>
<p>Harry sat on the chair across from him, sitting up straight as though he was about to be reprimanded. He felt stiff and awkwardly officious compared to Malfoy relaxed into his own couch while he calmly looked at his own fingernails, the ceiling, anywhere but Harry, willing to stubbornly wait out Harry’s patience.</p>
<p>In return, Harry looked at Malfoy.</p>
<p>He was somehow still so exactly the same as Harry remembered, still aloof and disdainful. And still arrogant, although as a teenager, he played his arrogance in broad strokes and affectation; now it seemed to have quietly settled into something a natural part of him to the very marrow of his bones.</p>
<p>And that was it, that was the other side of it: Malfoy was so much the same, but also someone completely different.</p>
<p>He was wearing <em>jeans</em>, for one thing. Harry could just imagine a teenage Malfoy being introduced to the very concept and scorning them first as something only a <em>Muggle</em> would wear, and then, only a Muggle who wanted to look <em>poor</em>; surely <em>he</em> would rather die than subject himself to such implications.</p>
<p>But this Malfoy wore jeans, and cozy striped socks, and a gray fisherman-style jumper, with rows of cables down the front.</p>
<p>This Malfoy didn’t mind the wayward strands of hair that fell loose around his face; this Malfoy probably didn’t even <em>own</em> pomade or hair oil or whatever-it-was he used religiously at Hogwarts. This Malfoy had a piercing in his left eyebrow, a small silver barbell that glinted near-delicately. This Malfoy was not nearly as thin as the one before; this Malfoy had new soft edges to temper the sharp pointed corners that had once formed his silhouette.</p>
<p>This Malfoy was still very fair, his skin a pale pinkish shade too light to quite count as <em>peach</em>. But there was color in his cheeks, ruddy and warm and rosy.</p>
<p>Back at school, he’d had an anemic pallor that often made him look as though he’d been drained of all color entirely. His skin, Harry remembered, sometimes seemed paper-thin and delicate, almost translucent, as though maybe one could individually count the small blue-and-purple blood vessels in the circles Malfoy always had under his eyes.</p>
<p>This Malfoy was fine. This Malfoy was comfortable and healthy. This Malfoy had found a self to live in that fit him. This Malfoy was <em>doing okay</em>, and Harry felt a brief hot anger spike in his throat at that realization.</p>
<p><em>How dare he? How dare he be the one to get this, after what he did, after what he was, how dare the world give Malfoy this? How dare he be fine, when I’m</em>—</p>
<p>
  <em>When I’m like I am.</em>
</p>
<p><em>It’s not my fault, I’ve done everything right. I stayed. I did everything I was told, I did everything everyone wanted me to, I did everything everyone asked of me. I did </em>everything<em>.</em></p>
<p>“I’m here on behalf of the Auror Department of the Ministry of Magic,” Harry announced, the words rushing out fast and annoyed.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s eyes snapped back to Harry’s face at that. “Oh, good. It’s always nice to learn one wasn’t wrong to assume a worst-case scenario. Although I believe I’ve already been arrested and processed for everything that I can remember doing, and then some.” His lips curved into a cold shape like a smile. “In addition, you’re out of your jurisdiction unless you’re accompanied by a representative of the New England regional Auror Division and they’ve authorized you to operate in cooperation with them.”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to arrest you.”</p>
<p>“Good. Because you’re not allowed. I know my rights, such as they are.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed and pushed his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose. “Merlin’s beard, Malfoy, I’m not—”</p>
<p>“Christ, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a person say that.” Malfoy wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Kind of an embarrassing idiom, really.”</p>
<p>“You’re not making this easy, you know.”</p>
<p>Malfoy raised his eyebrows. “An Auror shows up at my house completely unexpectedly. And not just <em>any</em> Auror, but <em>you</em>. And I’m supposed to make it <em>easy</em>?” He laughed a little hollowly at the idea. “Surely you usually deal with people actively trying to curse you when you show up. I’m just being <em>mildly</em> uncooperative, because I hardly feel like you lot have done anything to earn my cooperation.”</p>
<p>“‘You lot,’” Harry echoed back. There was a question in his voice, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.</p>
<p>“I imagine you’ll get around to telling me what I’m to be subjected to,” Malfoy continued, “but first I have to admit it’s an interesting touch, them sending you. I never thought the Aurors were much for mind games of <em>this</em> sort. After all, why take chances with nuance when the old standbys are so reliable?” He cocked his head to the side with a knowing look, but continued as if he was discussing the weather: “Is this the low blow of trying to add insult to injury? Are they hoping I might try to kill you on sight, so they’re justified in throwing me back in Azkaban? Is my old cell still open for me, or do they plan on giving me a new one neighboring my father?”</p>
<p>Harry opened his mouth and closed it again a couple of times, before finally managing, “Damn it, Malfoy, that’s not how it was at all. Nobody was saying, ‘Ooh, yes, let’s send Potter because they hate each other especially, that’ll be such fun.’”</p>
<p>Malfoy gave him a look that Harry had nearly forgotten; it was a half-lidded sidelong glance accompanied by an infuriatingly languorous arch of one eyebrow. It was a particular expression that he used to direct at Harry often, one that suggested he knew better than Harry, that Harry was a bit of an idiot and not even worth his time and breath to correct.</p>
<p>“It’s not like that,” Harry retorted. “You have no idea what’s at stake—You don’t know what’s happening back there.”</p>
<p>“Thank God for that,” Malfoy murmured.</p>
<p>“And I’m not going to tell you.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to know.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you supposed to be in uniform for this kind of thing?” Malfoy asked. He raked his eyes over Harry. <em>Bad call, should not have done that</em>. He wanted to hold his breath; he wanted to look quickly anywhere, anywhere else. “I mean,” he continued, sure he was making a neat recovery, “official business, flashing a badge, all that. Isn’t that part of the required intimidation protocol?”</p>
<p><em>Instead of you showing up to look beautiful at me like this</em>, he didn’t say.</p>
<p><em>Talk about insult to injury</em>, he didn’t say.</p>
<p><em>How dare you still be perfect</em>.</p>
<p>Harry was lean and compact, still a few inches shorter than Malfoy. He had the sort of frame that made him look as though he’d been designed entirely in neat bold lines drawn by a sure hand. The shape of his face was clean and angular—the crisp, sharp jawline; the neat square chin with a slight cleft in the middle; the smooth planes of his cheekbones. The curl and tousle of thick jet hair. That mouth. Those green eyes. </p>
<p>He was sitting in the cane seat chair as if too aware of his posture, as if he was still that same boy made entirely of barely contained kinetic energy, thrumming in the core of him like ball lightning.</p>
<p>Malfoy tried not to let his gaze trace the familiar shape of the raised scar that shocked over Harry’s forehead. It was the color of sand against his skin, a forked map of jagged lines stretching from his hairline to nick into his left eyebrow.</p>
<p>Harry shot him an impatient look. “I’m not trying to <em>intimidate</em> you,” he said. “First, because that’s not what I’m here to do. And second, because even if it <em>was</em>, when has that <em>ever</em> worked?”</p>
<p>Malfoy almost-chuckled at that. “You make a fair point.” And then his eyes widened slightly. “Oh, God. Are you here to tell me my father’s dead?”</p>
<p>“What? <em>No</em>. No, your father’s not dead.”</p>
<p>“My <em>mother</em>?”</p>
<p>“Not to my knowledge, no. Bloody hell, Malfoy, nobody’s <em>dead</em>. Calm down.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked affronted. “I think I’m taking the sudden appearance of the Great Auror Harry Potter in my living room with an <em>exceptional</em> calm, thank you very much.” He unfolded himself from the couch to sit leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, artfully entwining his fingers under his chin. Studying Harry closely, he asked, “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to keep guessing?”</p>
<p>“Malfoy, <em>please</em>.”</p>
<p>“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”</p>
<p>“Please. I’m—I’m trying to figure out how to—”</p>
<p>“Is it bigger than a breadbox?”</p>
<p>“Argh, <em>yes</em>,” Harry snapped. “<em>Yes</em>, it’s bigger than a breadbox. <em>No</em>, nobody’s died that I’m aware of. And, <em>yes</em>, you’re probably going to get mad at me when I tell you why I’m here.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I was already mad at you,” Malfoy promised, with a kind cold smile.</p>
<p>“Malfoy Manor,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Malfoy stopped smiling. He went very still. “What about it?” His voice was quiet now.</p>
<p>“Well. If you recall, it was, er, confiscated by the government in conjunction with the suspicion of criminal activity therein.”</p>
<p>“That’s one way to phrase it,” Malfoy murmured.</p>
<p>“You didn’t go back after that happened, did you,” Harry said. Not quite a question; he already knew the answer.</p>
<p>“I tried, once, before my trial. They’d warded it against me.”</p>
<p>“Only for a few years,” Harry said. “They took the barriers down eventually, but you’d disappeared by then.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked away. He ran the edge of one thumbnail back and forth along his bottom lip. His one old tell when worried and thinking hard. Harry could remember watching him do it during exams, sometimes when reading owls from home at the breakfast table.</p>
<p>“Are you here to give it back?” he asked finally, his eyes fixed on the little latch in the pocket door to the kitchen.</p>
<p>Harry’s heart sank. <em>I should have been more blunt. They tell me I’m too nice about things. They tell me over and over: These are suspected dark wizards, Potter, they’re not your friends coming ‘round for tea.</em></p>
<p>“Did you want it back?” he asked, a stammer threatening to hitch the question as it came out.</p>
<p>They had been playing with old rehearsed animosity until now.</p>
<p>Now things felt dangerously fragile, like every word spoken had to walk a thread-thin tightrope between them, suddenly pulled taut enough to snap at any moment.</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy replied reflexively. And then: “You’re not offering it, are you?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Malfoy turned his face back to look Harry square in the eyes. He raised one eyebrow for a moment, silently telling him to go on. Telling him,<em> I’m not going to keep feeding you your lines. I’m done making this easy for you</em>.</p>
<p>“The Malfoy Manor was—as I said—confiscated at a time when there was a lot of… There wasn’t a whole lot of oversight, I guess. Not a whole lot of focus on bureaucracy in the turmoil of the government getting taken over, then taken over again, and then… You know. All those things that’re so easy to say: Ends justify the means. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Those things that everyone said back then, ‘cause it seemed to, I dunno, excuse a lot of what was happening.”</p>
<p>“Because if you’ve heard it a thousand times before, it must be true. And if it’s true, then you all could do the things you did with a clean conscience. Because you were the good guys, working on the side of right.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t there for a lot of—of <em>that</em>. But we <em>were </em>on the good side, you know,” he said.</p>
<p>“Wasn’t arguing that.” He waved a hand. “But please continue.”</p>
<p>Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Malfoy. “Well. So there isn’t a very good official paperwork trail for some things. Like your manor.” He was fidgeting with his hands in his lap, knotting and unknotting his fingers. “They’re trying to fix a lot now. They’re trying to clean up the Ministry, but there’s so much that isn’t—No. That’s not important. The important part, the thing that concerns you, is that they realized that they may not technically have full legal claim to the Malfoy Manor.” He stopped to clear his throat, as if delaying a few seconds might somehow make easier the thing he had to say next. “That’s why I’m here. They need to make it legal. They need you to sign it over.”</p>
<p>Malfoy didn’t say anything for a minute as a complicated series of expressions passed across his face, almost all of them variation on disbelief and anger. “You have <em>got</em> to be fucking <em>kidding</em> me,” he said finally, drawing each syllable out slow and hard.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Harry told him.</p>
<p>Malfoy told himself that it didn’t earn Harry any points that he sounded miserable about it. But the misery was nice to hear.</p>
<p>“I’m not signing my house over to <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>“You said you didn’t want it back!”</p>
<p>“I <em>don’t</em>! But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give it up. It’s mine and you can’t have it.”</p>
<p>“That makes no <em>sense</em>,” Harry informed him with exasperation. “And it’s not <em>yours</em>, it hasn’t been <em>yours</em> in <em>years</em>, and we <em>can</em> have it. <em>Obviously</em> we can have it, because we <em>do have it right now</em>.”</p>
<p>He was close to yelling already, and Malfoy was glaring daggers at him.</p>
<p>“<em>Illegally</em>, according to what you just said. And don’t you <em>dare</em> to try to tell me it doesn’t make sense not to want to give the Ministry of Magic my family’s house. If you <em>actually</em> believe what you’re asking is a reasonable request in <em>any</em> version of reality, then you’ve no right to presume that you could <em>possibly</em> understand what I think.”</p>
<p>“I have <em>never once</em> in my whole life presumed to understand how <em>you</em> think, Malfoy,” Harry shot back. “I don’t <em>want</em> to do this, but—”</p>
<p>“‘This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,’” Malfoy recited. “‘I don’t want this any more than you do.’ I’ve heard <em>that</em> speech before, Potter, so save it.”</p>
<p>“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Harry said, dimly wondering in the back of his mind how many times he’d fallen back on saying that in his time as an Auror. Too many, probably.</p>
<p>“Oh, Jesus. I’ve heard <em>that</em> one too.” Malfoy’s whole self seemed to close off again, hard and cold and distant. And still so weary.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s <em>true</em>,” Harry informed him, voice rising still. “If you won’t sign, then I’ll have to go back empty-handed and they’ll send someone <em>else</em>, and that person won’t be half so inclined to make this easy and simple.”</p>
<p>“Is that supposed to be a <em>threat</em>, Potter?” Malfoy’s expression was hard to read behind the detached mask he had re-affixed, but it seemed for a moment to be something like hurt or maybe even trepidation. “From <em>you</em>?”</p>
<p>“It’s a <em>fact</em>, and you know it. Some other Auror’s going to jump at the chance to come out here and get something off a Death Eater. They’re going to be someone like McLaggen or Dubenich, they’re going to be someone who bloody loves their job and is gunning for a promotion, they’re going to be someone with no patience to play nice with someone like <em>you</em>. Especially not if they know you already refused to sign over something you don’t even want, just to be contrary and superior and <em>spiteful</em>. Damn it, Malfoy, they’re going to be dying to take your whole smug lord-of-the-manor act down a peg or three.”</p>
<p>“And that’s not what you’re doing right now?” Malfoy snapped back, arching one eyebrow with almost deadly animosity. “Or <em>trying</em> to do, at any rate.” He examined the fingernails of one hand in what would have seemed like convincing apathy, if every line of his body wasn’t tense with anger. “I must say, if this is what they think the good cop act should look like—”</p>
<p>“<em>That’s not what this is</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh, they’re skipping over the good cop phase entirely then, and just sending me Harry Fucking Potter first to rub salt in whatever old wounds they think I still have? And then if that doesn’t work, sure, go ahead, send in someone <em>else</em> who doesn’t have to worry about being the nice public face, the poster boy with the spotless record?”</p>
<p>“There <em>is</em> no good cop phase,” Harry retorted. As soon as he heard the words aloud, he regretted them.</p>
<p>Malfoy raised one eyebrow at that, his jaw tight, his eyes brimming with contempt and a complete lack of surprise at that statement. “I suppose it’s true after all,” he said, “what I’ve long suspected: I suppose every Auror <em>does</em> eventually become an asshole.”</p>
<p>He was goading Harry now and they both knew it.</p>
<p>“I’m not an arsehole,” Harry shot back. “I’m—”</p>
<p>“A good person?” Malfoy finished for him. He drew those three words out in that old haughty drawl, every syllable dripping disdain. “Of <em>course</em> you are, Potter. Every Auror is a good person. Every Auror is working towards a better world. Every Auror is on the side of right. I wouldn’t <em>dare</em> argue that. But there comes a point when every Auror <em>also</em> turns into an asshole.” He waved one hand languidly in a gesture that encompassed Harry from head to toe as though he were the first exhibit to prove Malfoy’s point. “You start out someone like <em>you</em>, all good intentions and a desire to make the world a better place, and somewhere down the line, you become the kind of person who’s fine playing errand boy on little jobs like <em>this</em>. Maybe it’s dealing with one too many men like my father, like my father’s friends, like my friends, maybe it’s one too many people who scramble to <em>Avada</em> you when you break down their front door. But every single one of you eventually turns into the Auror who treats everyone as if they’re already guilty by default. Who comes storming in all hard edges and distrust, sure before you even knock on the door that I’m still the same Death Eater scum you’re positive I <em>always</em> was. Who tells me that if I don’t cooperate, he’ll have them send someone <em>else</em>, someone who isn’t beholden to the public, who’ll not be half so nice as <em>he’s</em> being—which is hardly congenial, I might add—and thinks it’s entirely reasonable of him. Because veiled threats don’t <em>really</em> count as malfeasance, do they?”</p>
<p>“<em>I am not threatening you</em>!”</p>
<p>“Of course not. <em>That’s</em> the bad cop’s job. Your job is just to <em>imply</em> that I’m fucked if I don’t comply with your oh-so-reasonable request. Because <em>you’re</em> not here to play the bad cop, <em>you’re</em> just here to be a regular trustworthy Auror doing the right thing.”</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> doing the right—”</p>
<p>“Oh, fuck you, Potter, you’re not and you know it.”</p>
<p>“It’s <em>not yours</em> anymore,” Harry said, the words coming out loud, each syllable biting hard with sharp teeth. “It hasn’t been yours in years. You’re losing <em>nothing</em> here.”</p>
<p>“Well then I guess you don’t need anything from <em>me</em>, do you? Since it’s not <em>mine</em> anymore <em>anyway</em>.”</p>
<p>They were both on their feet now, voices loud and barbed.</p>
<p>“<em>You’re not getting it back</em>,” Harry shouted. “<em>Nobody is willing to give it back</em>, <em>Malfoy</em>. Nobody with the power to <em>do</em> it, anyway. It’s not about <em>you</em>, it’s about—It’s about <em>everything</em>, and you’ve got to learn that maybe <em>you</em> and <em>everything</em> aren’t always the same thing. And maybe for once in your <em>God-damned bloody life</em>, <em>you</em> aren’t more important than <em>everything else</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, <em>what?</em> Are you fucking <em>serious</em>, Potter. When was I <em>ever</em> more important than <em>anything</em>. How dare you. How <em>dare</em> you say that to me. <em>You</em>. How dare you come here, Harry Potter, boy hero, savior of our age, seventh wonder of the modern world, and accuse <em>me</em> of thinking <em>I’m</em> the important one.”</p>
<p>Harry came back with, “You don’t need to drag all that into this!”</p>
<p>Malfoy stared, angry and stunned. “<em>How</em>? How is that not part of this?”</p>
<p>Harry rubbed an aggravated hand through his hair and glared at Malfoy. “I was trying to keep this straightforward and easy. I didn’t want to pull all <em>that</em> back into things.”</p>
<p>“You don’t? And for whose sake is that? Because I’m starting to suspect it’s not for <em>my</em> benefit.”</p>
<p>“What are you <em>talking</em> about, Malfoy? Are you saying you actually <em>want</em> me to come in here and start listing out everything you did? Because I can do that, if that’s what you want. If you really want, I’ll pull out the whole back catalogue of your bullshit. And even if I just limited it to the overtly cruel, bigoted, or illegal—and ignored the thousand petty little things you’ve done—that <em>alone</em> would still take me half the night to get through.”</p>
<p>“Go ahead,” Malfoy instructed him, his voice icy now. He gestured as if he was ceding the floor to Harry to talk. “Take all the time you need. You’re not going to hurt <em>me</em> with what I already know.”</p>
<p>Harry looked at Malfoy standing across from him, defiant and guarded, ready to go through the song and dance yet again of having his personal record laid out before him.</p>
<p>“Bloody <em>hell</em>, Malfoy. I don’t <em>want</em>…” Harry trailed off. He still felt angry; he felt as though he’d been defeated; he felt angry at the defeat.</p>
<p>He wanted to sink into the little sofa and bury his head in his hands.</p>
<p>He wanted to grab Malfoy by the shoulders and shake him.</p>
<p>He wanted to touch Malfoy’s face.</p>
<p>He wanted to hex him with something small and sharp, stinging like an icicle against one of his round pink cheeks, flushed brighter now with twin blotches of anger.</p>
<p>He wanted to leave and go back to the Orchard House and hide in the room with green toile wallpaper and tend to wounds he wasn’t sure he understood yet.</p>
<p>He wanted to punch a wall.</p>
<p>Malfoy was studying him warily. The cold careful distance he’d built between them was still there, maybe even stronger now. “You don’t want what,” he said, his voice flat.</p>
<p>“I don’t—I don’t actually want to have to slog through all that. I don’t want to—to have to go through that kind of misery yet <em>again</em>, just for <em>your</em> entertainment.”</p>
<p>“For my entertainment,” Malfoy echoed, knitting his brow. He opened his mouth, about to say something else, but then reminded himself that he wasn’t going to be the first to extend an olive branch between them. Potter didn’t deserve the first kindness; Potter had been the one to burst in unannounced to dig his nails into scabs Malfoy had wanted to believe long ago healed. Potter had the gall to turn up, lean and beautiful, with the certainty that he was still as good as he had once been, as though the thing he was ordering Malfoy to do was right and just and beyond reproach.</p>
<p>Potter didn’t deserve forgiveness.</p>
<p><em>But </em>you<em> were the Death Eater. You can’t </em>really<em> believe you deserve anything from </em>anyone<em> anymore.</em></p>
<p>“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Harry was saying, “how much you always liked making me miserable. I’m not so stupid as to fall into that trap again.” He made a sharp sound like a laugh, too bitter and too rueful by half. “Despite what you may think.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think you’re <em>stupid</em>, Potter,” Malfoy snapped before he could think better of it.</p>
<p>Harry blinked, thrown off for a moment. “Well. <em>That’s</em> a new development, isn’t it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy let out a long, maybe-too-put-upon sigh. “Not really, no.” He looked at Harry then with an open frankness that made Harry self-conscious. “So you’re truly going to claim that you haven’t been saving up a whole tirade for years now about what an unforgivable bastard I am?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I… I guess I’d thought I would still have that ready for you.”</p>
<p>“But you don’t.”</p>
<p>“Seems not.”</p>
<p>“You’re not here to tell me off, just make me give you everything of my family’s.” Malfoy made a face somewhere between a smirk and a sneer. “Of course. You’re right, that’s just <em>fine</em>, then.”</p>
<p>“Should’ve just let them send McLaggen,” Harry muttered.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t take this better from him, you know.”</p>
<p>“This is you taking it well, then?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Well, then you haven’t bloody changed one bit.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked almost stung by that. <em>You have no idea who I am</em>, he wanted to say.</p>
<p>Instead he said, “But you have.”</p>
<p>“<em>Right</em>,” Harry sighed with a small scoffing chuckle. “I’m an arsehole now. You already mentioned that.”</p>
<p>Malfoy cocked his head to the side and bit his lower lip, evaluating Harry. “Hmm, yes, that <em>too</em>, I suppose.” Rearranging himself back into the sofa with a consciously practiced nonchalance, he inquired, “Did you still have more yelling you wanted to do? Or have you gotten that out of your system—for the time being, at least?”</p>
<p>Harry wanted to be mad at that, at the condescending way Malfoy said it, as though Harry were a difficult child he was indulging. But it was such a Draco Malfoy thing to do, defaulting back to smug arrogance, that Harry couldn’t quite find any actual malice in it.</p>
<p>So Harry found himself almost smiling, filled with a strange nostalgia for Malfoy’s natural default state of total insufferability.</p>
<p>“I reckon I’m done trying to fight with you,” Harry said. “Seems I’m out of practice. At any rate, I never was good at feeling like I’d really <em>won</em>, even back when we were going at it weekly, back in school. I always felt like you’d managed to get under my skin for days after, and meanwhile you’d just swan off like nothing had even touched you.”</p>
<p>“You never learned to keep your head.”</p>
<p>“I just figured you didn’t have the bare minimum human decency a person needs in order to be able to feel bad about things.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was quiet for a moment. “I suppose I can accept that as a win.” He sort-of smiled a little. “Let me guess, now’s the part where you’re figuring out how to say, ‘So, fancy signing over everything you’re the rightful heir to?’ without starting round two.”</p>
<p>“What… else would you suggest I do?”</p>
<p>“Wow,” Malfoy said. “What, are you not allowed to consider yourself off the clock at any point until your job is done?”</p>
<p>Harry frowned, puzzled. “No, I am, but—Are you asking me to leave? I can come back later, I can—”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy replied, a little too quickly, sitting up straight. “I mean to say—Listen, Potter, would you really be perfectly content making this whole thing last only just long enough for you to get the deeds to my estate signed over, and that’s it, the end?”</p>
<p>“This whole thing?” Harry asked. “You didn’t exactly seem thrilled to see me on your doorstep—”</p>
<p>“You were lurking in my shrubbery, being a Peeping Tom. <em>Unsuccessfully</em>, I might add.”</p>
<p>“—and were definitely telling me to get fucked for what I came here to ask.”</p>
<p>Malfoy seemed mildly amused. “Oh, absolutely, you can <em>very much </em>go fuck yourself for that. I’m not changing my mind there. But are you <em>really</em> going to tell me that you never even once in the last decade wondered what it would be like to actually <em>see</em> each other again someday?”</p>
<p>“Still think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” Harry replied, finding the easy groove of casual needling they used to have back in school, on the lucky rare days when the stakes didn’t seem high enough for them to go for the throat. “Why? You think about <em>me</em> that much, Malfoy?”</p>
<p>Malfoy smirked at that. “All the time, Potter,” he tossed back, all flippant cheek.</p>
<p>That seemed to trip Harry for a moment, but then he recovered with, “S’pose you still spend your days making lists of all the petty things you hate about me?”</p>
<p>“Don’t know that I ever had the inclination to invest that kind of time and effort in you.”</p>
<p>“You <em>gave</em> it to me. Fifth year, remember?” Harry traced lines in the air as if reading off a sheet of parchment. “Thinks he’s special but doesn’t deserve the fuss. Rubbish at Potions and pretends it’s because Snape hates him even though it’s because he doesn’t study. Too many friends. Chews on the tip of his quill. Stupid green eyes are distracting.”</p>
<p>“I did <em>not</em> give you<em>—</em>” Malfoy stopped. “Never mind.” He pushed back the cuff of his jumper to look at a slender silver watch. “Listen, have you eaten dinner?”</p>
<p>Harry watched him check the time, deftly conning himself into believing he hadn’t noticed that Malfoy still had lovely wrists. “No, I guess I hadn’t thought of it yet. I don’t even know what time it’s supposed to be.”</p>
<p>Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Some things don’t change, do they?” he remarked, standing up. “Come on, Potter. Get your coat back on. I suppose I’m going to have to keep you from starving to death.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of chapter from "Hear Me Out" from <em>36 Questions.</em></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Four</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>She said, “How are you, Harry?”</em><br/>
<em>I said, “How are you, Sue?”</em><br/>
<em>Through the too many miles</em><br/>
<em>And the too few smiles</em><br/>
<em>I still remember you</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The streets were quiet, even in early evening.</p>
<p>For about half a block, the only sounds were the crunch of rock salt and crushed ice underfoot and the whistling whip of wind coming in cold and wet from the cove.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat. “So, er, where are we going?” he ventured.</p>
<p>Malfoy laughed a little and shook his head. “Christ, Potter, you just obediently follow a Death Eater you’ve just pissed off out into the dark without even asking him where he’s taking you? Are you <em>sure</em> you’re an Auror?”</p>
<p>Harry chuckled despite himself. “You know,” he pointed out, “I never actually showed you a badge. Are <em>you</em> sure I’m actually an Auror?”</p>
<p>“Oh my God, can you imagine, you flashing a badge at me like I don’t already know bloody well exactly who you are? I probably would have punched you.”</p>
<p>“Figured you’d’ve gone for the Needle Hex. That was your old standby, after all.”</p>
<p>Malfoy shot Harry a bemused look. “You <em>do</em> know I don’t have a wand, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“You—You don’t?”</p>
<p>“Well, I lost the rights to carry one while I was under investigation and then, of course, for the duration of my sentence.” Malfoy shrugged. “I imagine they probably would have given it back after the whole probationary period after I got out. But I’m fairly sure me leaving the country violated my release license, and it just… didn’t seem quite worth it anymore to see how much I could get away with.” He glanced at Harry. “I was mostly just trying to be left alone, you know.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Sorry.” Harry was quiet a moment, thinking over what Malfoy had just told him. “How did they find you, then?”</p>
<p>“You tell me,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “I’m not actually—Er, well. I’m not actually the person the Auror Department was going to send for this. To be completely honest about the situation.”</p>
<p>Malfoy stopped walking and turned to stare at Harry. “Pardon, what? Who were they going to—?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Probably someone like McLaggen. It’s been years since anyone actually had to track down a Death Eater, so they’d probably pull out Abernathy’s star employee and give him the privilege of”—Harry flashed a wry smile—“the <em>privilege</em> of your charming company.” He took a deep breath then and looked up at the streetlight they had stopped under, finding the nerve to confess something he had thought he didn’t want Malfoy to know. “I’m not important. Not the way you seem to think I might be. I’m not some kind of big hero Auror. I’ve never gotten promoted up the ladder. I don’t have any medals or commendations. None that I really deserve, anyway.” He considered that. “I think I’ve been <em>demoted</em>, actually. To put all my cards on the table for you here.”</p>
<p>After Harry finished, there were about a dozen questions that crowded into the back of Malfoy’s throat, all of them seeming equally important and unimportant all at once. “Six and a half months,” he said finally. “It’s been six and a half months at <em>most</em> since an Auror went to see a Death Eater. That’s when Dubenich turned up on my doorstep, back at the end of June, official robes pressed so clean and perfect, charmed to keep from getting all limp and sweaty in the summer heat. He didn’t actually want anything of me; they just wanted to prove that they’d found me, now that he’d actually cracked a way to track us down.” He smirked. “I imagine if they had just given me my wand back, they wouldn’t have had to do… <em>that</em> to find me.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned at the news that the Aurors had known where Malfoy was for over half a year. “Do you know how they <em>did</em> track you down?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Malfoy answered, but then nothing more.</p>
<p>Harry waited.</p>
<p>Malfoy raised his eyebrows at Harry. “They really <em>are</em> treating you like a mushroom, then. Interesting. So how did you manage to usurp this assignment from the brute squad of Dubenich and McLaggen?”</p>
<p>“Hermione.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>“I still have questions, Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“As do I, Potter.”</p>
<p>Harry rubbed his mittened hands together and suggested, “But maybe we could keep walking? It’s bleeding <em>cold</em> out.”</p>
<p>“Oh, all right, come on then.”</p>
<p>Harry fell back into step beside Malfoy. “You still haven’t said where you’re taking me.”</p>
<p>“The Fisherman’s Breakfast. It’s a diner on the other side of town.”</p>
<p>“Are there no places to eat closer to <em>this</em> side of town?”</p>
<p>“Of course, but they aren’t mine.” He slipped Harry a guarded sidelong glance. “I don’t mean <em>mine, </em>exactly; I don’t <em>own</em> it. But I work at a diner called The Fisherman’s Breakfast in a tiny tourist town in Maine. I suppose you might think you’re entitled to gloat a bit at that news?”</p>
<p>“Not really.”</p>
<p>Malfoy blinked. “No?”</p>
<p>“Well. I <em>did</em> just admit that I was a shite Auror, if you remember.”</p>
<p>“I’ve still got a few questions there,” Malfoy said, “just to forewarn you.”</p>
<p>“So have I. <em>How</em> did Dubenich say that they—?”</p>
<p>“Good God, Potter. I’ve never been one to be accused of overestimating the capabilities of Gryffindor intelligence, but come on. What’s the most obvious answer here?”</p>
<p>Harry frowned, thinking that over. “The obvious answer,” he said, “is also the impossible one. The Dark Mark.”</p>
<p>“Ding ding ding, we have a winner,” Malfoy said drily.</p>
<p>“But they already <em>tried</em> that, years back, under Robards. They thought that with Voldemort dead, some of the magic would weaken enough and they could start to hack the Dark Mark—”</p>
<p>“A little like dismantling a bomb, isn’t it? A bomb that’s also a computer, and you <em>also</em> can’t actually see all the parts that go into it or how they’re held together. <em>And</em> it’s attached to someone’s arm.”</p>
<p>“—so of course it didn’t work, there were so many failsafes built in, and it was such a complicated piece of enchantment. They never made any real headway. And then after the research was scrapped, they never touched it again.” <em>They were </em>told<em> never to touch it again</em>.</p>
<p>“To <em>your</em> knowledge.”</p>
<p>“Well. Yes. That’s fair. To <em>my</em> knowledge.” He paused. “They had pretty much everyone in Azkaban already. You had been released, and the last couple hadn’t been terribly hard to find through other channels before you—before you got out. But this was all years ago, anyway.”</p>
<p>Malfoy mulled this over. “Are you saying that I’m the one lone Death Eater left? And I’m worth <em>that</em> kind of effort to track down?”</p>
<p>“Er, not really. No. A couple of the others may end up qualifying for release. So we’ll know where they’re all supposed to <em>be</em>, but we don’t actually <em>trust</em> any of them.” Harry felt a little embarrassed saying that out loud right to a former Death Eater.</p>
<p>That he wanted to believe he could trust.</p>
<p>“Good,” Malfoy said. “You shouldn’t.”</p>
<p>Harry shot him a look.</p>
<p>Malfoy waved Harry’s unspoken question off with a gesture that somehow managed to still appear liquid and refined, despite the puffy quilted coat and thick knit gloves. “You are permitted, of course, to make an exception for present company. Should you choose to.” He rubbed a gloved thumb along the bottom of his mouth, thinking hard. “But they managed to crack it. Somehow.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure they didn’t have some other way to find—?”</p>
<p>“Someone reaches out to you, you feel it,” Malfoy informed him, with a note of finality in his voice that told Harry that he was done with the conversation.</p>
<p>Harry, however, wasn’t. “But I know they hadn’t figured out the Dark Mark <em>before</em>, the last time around. So I don’t suppose Dubenich actually <em>said</em> anything about <em>how</em>—?”</p>
<p>“Ogunquit, Maine has a population of less than nine hundred permanent residents,” Malfoy cut in loudly, gesturing broadly at the street around them in imitation of an overenthusiastic tour guide. “But the population goes up to roughly seven and a half million in the summer when the tourists invade.”</p>
<p>“That seems unlikely.”</p>
<p>“Maths don’t really seem like your strong suit, Potter. Stay in your lane.” Malfoy seemed to be fighting back a smile now, and then continued in a mock-serious tone, “Ogunquit is the home of Marginal Way, a scenic trail for people who like being outdoors, and the Ogunquit Playhouse, which put on both <em>Cabaret</em> and <em>Hello, Dolly!</em> last year, which probably doesn’t count as <em>culture</em> in the most highbrow sense of the word, but I don’t imagine you’re much of one for culture anyway.”</p>
<p>“How informative. If a little passive-aggressive; maybe I <em>do</em> have culture, you don’t know.”</p>
<p>“As far as I can tell,” Malfoy continued, “the major commodities in the state of Maine are, in no particular order: lobster rolls, seasonal depression, white people, and something called Moxie which is more a punishment in a can than it is a beverage.”</p>
<p>“Not much of a sales pitch there, is it?”</p>
<p>“Well, the lobster rolls are good.”</p>
<p>“One out of four, then.”</p>
<p>They were strolling along Main Street now. It was sparsely populated, but there were still enough people walking past that Harry understood Malfoy’s desire to stop the line of questioning about Dubenich and Death Eaters and the Dark Mark.</p>
<p>“I <em>do</em> like it here, actually,” Malfoy continued, a little defensively. “I’ve made a place for myself, and would really <em>appreciate</em> not having that fucked up by a parade of unwanted visitors barging in to make me answer for things I hoped were already atoned for.”</p>
<p>“Are you referring to me specifically, or just the rest of the Aurors?”</p>
<p>Malfoy slowed to contemplate a collection of watercolors in the front window of a local art gallery. “Still making my mind up on that,” he said.</p>
<p>At the end of Main Street, they turned onto Shore Road, which ran to the beach, its sands and grasses hidden under drifts of windblown snow. Close to the corner was a big white restaurant, bearing two flags—one American and one rainbow. About half the tables in the main dining room were full, despite the quiet cold everywhere else in town. It was a lively place, with a piano player and people eating and singing and laughing.</p>
<p>“Keep moving,” Malfoy said. “I’m not taking you to The Front Porch.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“Because this isn’t a date,” Malfoy informed him, then immediately regretted saying it.</p>
<p>Of course it wasn’t a date.</p>
<p>It was about unlike a date as anything could be.</p>
<p>He didn’t <em>want</em> it to be a date.</p>
<p>But he also didn’t want to have the reality of the very-much-<em>not</em>-a-date situation spelled aloud so bluntly, even if he had been the one to say it.</p>
<p>Of course, the thought would never even have crossed Potter’s mind.</p>
<p><em>Harry Potter, who’s married, and here because he has to be, and hates you</em>.</p>
<p>“But we’re right here, and it’s<em> so cold </em>out.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, Potter, quit whining. We’re almost there.”</p>
<p>If it hadn’t been Malfoy saying it, Harry would have almost mistaken the tone for fondness.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the block, at the end of a row of shops, there stood a tidy white-and-silver diner with the words <em>The Fisherman’s Breakfast</em> painted along the top in large swooping sky-blue script. The entire front facade bore a long continuous window decorated with snowflakes taped up from the inside. They were cut from construction paper in every bright color, handmade with a wide range in quality.</p>
<p>As they approached the door, Malfoy stopped at the last second, grabbing Harry’s arm.</p>
<p>“Shit,” he said. “I almost forgot. I’m assuming you got enough of a file on me to know that I’m not here under my own name, right?”</p>
<p>“No, there was no actual <em>file</em>. I just got your address from Hermione with the documents.”</p>
<p>“Alfred Morris.”</p>
<p>“What? Your name here is <em>Alfred</em>?”</p>
<p>“Look, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to acquiring documents for a fake Muggle identity on short notice.”</p>
<p>“I guess not, <em>Alfred</em>.”</p>
<p>“Shut up. Just letting you know so you don’t blow my cover.”</p>
<p>“What about me?”</p>
<p>“What <em>about</em> you? Who cares who <em>you</em> are, they have no idea who Harry Potter’s supposed to be.”</p>
<p>At that, Malfoy pushed open the door and pushed Harry unceremoniously inside.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a big place, with black-and-white checkerboard linoleum flooring and dark wood paneled walls that appeared to have been an attempt to modernize sometime back in the ‘70s. There were nine booths along the front windows and a long counter with stools along the back. One end of the counter held a large gleaming espresso machine, while the other boasted a row of pies in a glass case. The booths and stools were upholstered in vinyl the color of robin’s eggs, and the countertop tables were in blue-and-green speckled Formica, worn to nearly white in some patches from years of diners’ elbows.</p>
<p>Despite the wear, the whole place bore an air of pride, as though those that cared for it did so with love and devotion.</p>
<p>The only patrons seemed to be a pair of old men arguing in thick Maine accents about what was causing that funny sound their truck was making. The one with a beard was insisting it was the ignition, while the one in overalls was telling him he wouldn’t know his way around an engine block if someone drew him a map and held his hand.</p>
<p>“We-ell, ain’t that real funny then, how I was the one who fixed the damn thing last time,” Beard said, “when she was makin’ that <em>k-k-k-k-grrrrr</em> noise. Remember?”</p>
<p>“Beginner’s luck,” Overalls replied dismissively.</p>
<p>“Beginner’s luck my ass. I’m <em>sixty-five damn years old</em>, Bud, I ain’t been a beginner at <em>anything</em> since 1963 and you damn well know it, ‘cause you’ve been around every one a’ those years.”</p>
<p>“God help me,” Overalls—Bud—sighed. “Serial killers get shorter sentences than <em>this</em>.”</p>
<p>“Hello again, Gene, Bud,” Malfoy said, “still here, I see.”</p>
<p>“Ayup,” Bud replied cheerfully. “What, you expect us to argue at home where we gotta make our own coffee?”</p>
<p>“Say,” Gene observed, “didn’t you just leave? Your life so boring you’re choosing to come back to work on a Saturday night?”</p>
<p>“Indeed, youth is wasted on the young,” Bud agreed sagely.</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah,” Malfoy said amiably. “I’m not back here to work. I’m here to eat.”</p>
<p>“You already did that at work,” Bud reminded him.</p>
<p>Malfoy ignored that observation. “The bosses still around, or do I have to serve us myself?”</p>
<p>Gene looked pointedly from Harry to Malfoy. “So who’s the other half of this <em>us</em>?”</p>
<p>Steering Harry towards a booth at the other corner of the diner, Malfoy replied, “I don’t have to tell you that. I’m off the clock, so I’m not beholden to your nosy questions.”</p>
<p>“Aw, leave ‘em alone,” Bud told Gene. “You’ll scare the boy off and then Alfie’ll never make you fancy coffees again.”</p>
<p>“Should I be calling you Alfie too?” Harry asked in an undertone, as he slid into the booth across from Malfoy, clearly averse to the very notion.</p>
<p>“You even think about it and I’ll kill you.” Malfoy’s tone was light and sardonic, but he ran a thumbnail along his lower lip and focused his gaze on the salt and pepper shakers. “Just… don’t call me <em>Malfoy</em> here either. Or bring up anything having to do with magic. My past. Your past. Wizarding society. Basically, defer to me and don’t try to lead any conversations with your own judgment, Potter.”</p>
<p>The kitchen door behind the counter swung open and a man came out, saying, “Sweet Jesus, Alfie, did you come <em>back</em>? Get a life, would ya?”</p>
<p>“That’s what we said!” Gene chimed in helpfully.</p>
<p>“Shut up, Gene,” the new arrival said with an affable grin, before coming over to lean on his elbows at the end of the counter nearest to Malfoy and Harry’s booth. “You expecting me to play waiter to you and your date?”</p>
<p>Malfoy’s eyes went wide with something that might have been either embarrassment or a sudden desire to murder his own boss. “He’s not my <em>date</em>, Tony, <em>oh my God</em>.”</p>
<p>Tony nodded, still grinning. “Good. Then I don’t need to help you impress anyone. Help yourself to whatever you want, princess.”</p>
<p>Tony was, Harry thought, one of the largest men he’d seen in recent memory, or at least, one of the largest <em>seeming</em>. He was both fat and tall, with a full dark beard, with wide shoulders and a large belly, with the sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt rolled up to expose thick forearms mapped with nautical tattoos.</p>
<p>“Staying at Orchard House?” he asked Harry. “I recognize Jan’s things.”</p>
<p>“Please take off the hat and scarf,” Malfoy said. “You look like a lesbian who knits.”</p>
<p>Harry obliged, and Malfoy took their coats and winter things to hang on the old coat rack by the door.</p>
<p>While he did that, Harry reached up to unflatten his hair. He saw Tony’s eyes flick to the lightning bolt for a moment with a familiar look of recognition.</p>
<p>“Hey, Alfie,” Tony said, far too casually, “who’s your friend?”</p>
<p>Malfoy took a long deep breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “<em>This</em>,” he said, “is Harry.”</p>
<p>Tony’s eyebrows seemed to go halfway up his forehead. “<em>Oh</em>,” he said, with a pointed look at Malfoy, “<em>is</em> it now.”</p>
<p>“Harry happened to be in the area on a business trip,” Malfoy continued, as if Tony hadn’t spoken. “He thought he’d drop by and say hello before heading back to London.”</p>
<p>“Pleased to meet you,” Harry volunteered, not sure what else there was to say.</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed, a bit too dramatically put-upon. “Right, <em>fine</em>. Harry, this is Tony,” he said, gesturing from one to the other. “I work for him. Tony, this is Harry. We went to school together.” And then to Tony: “Now go away very quickly. Please.”</p>
<p>Tony held up his hands in mock surrender. “Jesus, I sure let Merv hire a pushy employee.” But he went down to the other end of the diner to chat with Bud and Gene.</p>
<p>“<em>You’re</em> the one who hired me, you ass,” Malfoy called after him. “Don’t pin this on Merv when he’s not around to defend himself.”</p>
<p>Tony just laughed in response.</p>
<p>“I think he recognized me,” Harry said quietly. “He looked at my scar.”</p>
<p>Malfoy waved that away. “Don’t worry about that. Tony’s as Muggle as they come.”</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>“But maybe I’ve mentioned you in passing once or twice. Probably said something about a schooldays rival with a big scar on his forehead. I don’t really remember.”</p>
<p>Harry looked skeptical at that, but didn’t press the issue. Instead he switched to something even worse: “Everyone here seemed to assume I was your date.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Malfoy huffed. “Unbelievable.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so you <em>don’t</em> date blokes?”</p>
<p>“No, of course I do. Not that it’s any business of yours.”</p>
<p>“No, ‘course, you’re right, it’s not.” And because Harry had never learned to just let things lie: “Are you gay? Since <em>when</em>?”</p>
<p>Malfoy stared at Harry like he had grown a second head for just a moment. With a slow shake of his head, he then favored Harry with that withering look, that slow arch of one eyebrow. “This is a real question, is it?”</p>
<p>Harry sighed and tried not to bristle at Malfoy’s condescending tone. “Not my business, got it. Sorry.”</p>
<p>“I’m just frankly affronted that anyone would believe me so gauche as to have a first date at the diner where I <em>work</em>,” Malfoy explained. He smirked a little then as he counted off on his fingers: “One: I don’t take a date to a place I eat for <em>free</em>, good God. Two: I don’t date married men. Three: I don’t date Aurors. Four: Even if I <em>did</em>, I most certainly wouldn’t date one who was here on an asshole assignment like yours. Five: Points one through four are trivial and irrelevant, compared to the simple and unavoidable fact that you’re <em>Harry Potter</em>.”</p>
<p>“Your whole no-fly list for dating is just ‘no married men, no Aurors, and specifically not me?’” Harry gave Malfoy a skeptical look that Malfoy was pretty sure was Harry making fun of him.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t worry,” Malfoy assured him. “You’ll be relieved to hear that I have a long and inexhaustible list of qualities I don’t care for in other people: Having opinions on American football. Or sport in general. Mistakes me for someone who can be convinced that going to the gym is a ‘fun date activity.’ Gets offended that I won’t give Douglas Adams another chance. Any kind of New Age tendencies. Saying that you’re ‘learning’ to play guitar ‘a little bit.’ Chewing too loudly. Calling anyone in customer service by name like they <em>know</em> them, just because they were obligated to wear a badge or introduce themselves. Joking ‘that was a good year’ whenever they’re told they owe nineteen dollars and <em>any</em> number of cents.”</p>
<p>“Some of these seem very specific.”</p>
<p>“Musical theatre gays. That’s a broad category. Primarily enamored of my accent to the cost of caring what I actually have to say. Even <em>broader</em> category.”</p>
<p>“Chews on the tip of their quill? Rubbish at Potions?” Harry suggested. “Stupid green eyes?”</p>
<p>Malfoy tried to brush past that. “Stupid tattoos,” he said.</p>
<p>Instinctively, Harry put his right hand over his left, pretending to fold them casually, one on top of the other, on the table in front of him. Malfoy’s eyes flicked downward and then back at Harry’s face.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know if—I thought that might have been a dig at me for…” Harry sighed and unfolded his hands, moving the left a couple of inches closer to Malfoy, turning his wrist to give Malfoy a better angle of view.</p>
<p>Malfoy had noticed it before, somewhere in the back of his mind, when they had been yelling at each other in his sitting room.</p>
<p>It was a black stick-and-poke tattoo rendered with care on the back of Harry’s hand, near the crook of his thumb. The abstract shape was a burst of lines in a neat circle, just a little smaller than a Galleon coin, somehow lively and dynamic despite its simplicity.</p>
<p>“Did you tattoo <em>yourself</em>?” Malfoy asked, pretending not to be distracted by the words <em>I must not tell lies</em> still nearly legible in the raised scarring on Harry’s other hand, or at the way Harry still, all these years later, had the short uneven nails and ragged cuticles of a nailbiter.</p>
<p>“No, George did it,” Harry said, trying not to notice the way his hand was so close to Malfoy’s on the tabletop, the tips of Malfoy’s long pale fingers only a couple inches from his; he tried not to notice how those couple inches felt like a hair’s breadth, felt like a million miles.</p>
<p>Harry saw Malfoy’s hands were dry and chapped pink over the back, mottled with darker ruddy spots along the knuckles and fingertips. His nails were perfect.</p>
<p>“He did it a couple years back,” Harry added, “on their birthday.”</p>
<p>Harry was looking at Malfoy with a guarded care, as though getting a careless insult <em>here</em> might hurt more than Malfoy’s usual patter of careless insults everywhere else.</p>
<p>“Don’t be daft, Potter,” Malfoy said, pulling his own hand away, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair back behind his ear, “I didn’t mean <em>that</em>. I meant things like a band of barbed wire around your bicep, or Chinese characters on white guys from Bangor. I wasn’t suggesting—” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. I’ll go get us dinner, shall I?”</p>
<p>He slipped out of the booth and went behind the counter and through the swinging door leading back into the kitchen.</p>
<p>Draco stopped to lean back against the wall just inside the door, closing his eyes. He wondered if taking deep breaths and counting to ten in your head worked for embarrassment the way it was supposed to for anger.</p>
<p>It didn’t.</p>
<p>“You okay there, kiddo?” someone asked from where he leaned against one of the long counters, reading a paperback novel. He was a slender thirtysomething man, striking and improbably well-groomed, even while wearing an apron embellished with a few splashes of sauce and a fine speckling frying pan oil at the waist.</p>
<p>Draco opened one eye to glare at him. “I’m <em>fine</em>, Merv. <em>Thanks</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv looked unconvinced. “Sure. Fine.”</p>
<p>The door swung open with a sudden vehemence and startled Draco back a step.</p>
<p>“<em>Merv</em>,” Tony said in a stage whisper, moving to stand between him and Draco. “Merv, babe, get over here.”</p>
<p>Merv tossed his paperback aside, curiosity piqued.</p>
<p>“Oh, no, this is not a group discussion.” Draco stepped between them and tried to hold up his hands to keep Merv and Tony far enough apart to prevent a conversation. “I came in here for chowder and lobster rolls, not a summit on my personal life.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, you’re outranked by both of us,” Tony said. “So if I say I need to have a word with my employee, my employee’s supposed to acquiesce. Them’s the rules.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so now I’m an <em>employee</em> to you, am I,” Draco quipped drily, then looked to Merv for backup.</p>
<p>“Sorry, kiddo. I’m too nosy to side with you. Summits on your personal life are one of my main hobbies.” Merv gave Tony an expectant look. “So? Spill. Why the family meeting?”</p>
<p>“Alfie brought a guy in for dinner.”</p>
<p>Merv frowned. “But not as a <em>date</em>. You don’t bring a date to the shabby diner where you <em>work</em>.” He considered. “Well. <em>I</em> might, and <em>you</em> might, but Alfie’s got a modicum of class.”</p>
<p>“I knew you were my favorite,” Draco said.</p>
<p>Merv winked at him and slung an arm around his waist.</p>
<p>“I’m ignoring that ‘shabby’ remark,” Tony said, “because. The guy. Is <em>Harry</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv’s eyes went round. “<em>That</em> Harry?” He turned to Draco, accusing. “And you brought him <em>here</em>? What’s wrong with you? You want he should think you’re not <em>interested</em> in—?”</p>
<p>“<em>I’m not interested in Harry</em>,” Draco cut in sharply, slightly louder than he meant to.</p>
<p>He tried to remember how much sound was able to carry from the kitchen when the diner was nearly empty.</p>
<p>Tony raised his eyebrows in pointed skepticism.</p>
<p>“I wanna see him,” Merv said, moving towards the door.</p>
<p>Draco put his hands on Merv’s chest and said very slowly and seriously, “Merv. I bear you no ill will, but I will murder you if you make this any more awkward than it already is.”</p>
<p>Merv rolled his eyes and took a step back. “What if,” he proposed, “I bring out your food, and come to the table then? Make it seem natural and <em>not</em> nosy?”</p>
<p>“I… Fine. I guess. If you must.”</p>
<p>“Yes. I must,” Merv assured him somberly. Then a familiar look danced across his eyes, bright and impish. “And then while I’m there, I could <em>casually</em> hint at how good you are in bed?”</p>
<p>“Only if you want that murder I warned you about.”</p>
<p>“What, you don’t think Wonder Boy Harry Potter deserves to know the straight truth from a primary source?”</p>
<p>Tony laughed and rolled his eyes. “This is sounding less like you wanting to <em>help</em>, and more like you wanting to <em>brag</em>. And I’m not gonna even touch the fact you’d actually refer to that as <em>the straight truth</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv blinked his dark delighted eyes up at Tony. “Well, if you’re feeling <em>left out</em>, I could pull you in to give your own—whatdyacallit—independent verification.”</p>
<p>“That’s… not what I’d call it, no,” Tony said.</p>
<p>“Don’t make Tony talk to a stranger about his sex life,” Draco said. “It might kill him.”</p>
<p>“You’re right,” Merv agreed. “Catholicism. Such a tragic condition.”</p>
<p>“I hate both of you.” Tony tried to glower at them, but a bit of a smile still cracked through.</p>
<p>Draco smirked, arching an eyebrow. “That’s not the impression I got a few nights ago.”</p>
<p>Merv shoved Draco lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t deflect this from whatever’s going on here with you and your long-lost whatever-he-is.”</p>
<p>Tony pointed at Merv to second that.</p>
<p>“Do we not want to remember how straight and married he is?” Draco asked. “Because <i>I</i> would still consider that pertinent information.”</p>
<p>“He's not wearing a ring,” Tony said.</p>
<p>Draco opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “You saw that from where you were?” was what he eventually came up with as the best reply.</p>
<p>“I was looking.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t mean anything. He probably just lost it.”</p>
<p>Merv fought back an incredulous laugh. “You think he just… lost… his <em>wedding</em> ring?”</p>
<p>Draco let out a long exasperated sigh. “Yes! Maybe! Please remember who here is the expert on the sort of person Harry Potter is—”</p>
<p>“From years of <em>studious</em> observation,” Merv supplied wryly.</p>
<p>“—and I can tell you that he is <em>exactly</em> the sort of idiot who might do something like lose his own wedding ring.”</p>
<p>Merv rubbed his forehead. “<em>Oy vey</em>.” Looking up at Tony, he said, “The kid’s for real here with that?”</p>
<p>Draco glared at them each in turn. “I know what I’m talking about. Trust me.” Rubbing his thumbnail against his lower lip, he let a hint of worry slip through. “He didn’t know I was gay,” he told them. “I think I just accidentally came out. I think I’ve been too used to it being old news <em>here</em> that I’d forgotten how long it’s been since I last was <em>there</em>.”</p>
<p>“Wait. Hold up.” Tony put up a hand to stop Draco. “You’re saying… that Harry didn't know you were gay… until you mentioned it just now?” he asked, looking at Draco as if the very idea wasn't computing. “Alfie, the boy might be wearing glasses, but he's not <em>blind</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv was trying to appear sympathetic, but flashes of amusement kept breaking through. “Seriously. What <em>else</em> was he supposed to think? You have the natural bearing and mannerisms of a Leyendecker sock ad. And that's coming from <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>Draco knew there was no way to argue that point, so instead he said, “Do I need to review the parts where I said ‘very straight’ and ‘the kind of idiot who might lose his own wedding ring?’ My faith in his ability to pick up on that sort of thing is <em>not</em> high.”</p>
<p>Rolling his eyes, Tony took Draco by the shoulders and turned him back towards the door. “There’s no winning with you, is there. Get back out there and platonically interact with this guy then. Or whatever it is you think you’re doing.”</p>
<p>After Tony gently pushed Draco back out into the diner, Merv reached over and put a hand on Tony’s arm.</p>
<p>“Hon, be honest with me,” he said, “is this okay? For Alfie, having this guy surprise resurface without warning.”</p>
<p>“He brought him here.”</p>
<p>“Right. That’s what I mean. Because it’s safe here.”</p>
<p>Tony nodded. “Because we’re here,” he said. “I know. But I think he’ll be all right. Who knows, this could even been a good thing for him.”</p>
<p>“‘Very straight’ though?” Merv asked, pensively searching his partner’s face for a chance that they could even hope to be optimistic.</p>
<p>Tony sighed, tired and defeated. “I don’t know. Probably. Likely. Guess it’s just nice to imagine Alf being able to catch even half a break on this one.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Malfoy slid back into the booth across from Harry with two glasses of ice water. “Food’s coming,” he said. He congratulated himself on sounding completely normal, as though he wasn’t still a bit dazed from the conversation he’d just been through in the kitchen.</p>
<p>Harry nodded in acknowledgment, but couldn’t think of what else he ought to say. The situation felt like one that demanded idle small talk. <em>What have you been up to? When did you move here? Do you enjoy working here?</em></p>
<p>But all the questions he still had seemed hard and like trying to force open a door that wasn’t his to open.</p>
<p>“So Dubenich was already here,” he said. “Just to make you aware that the Aurors can track you down.” <em>Awesome conversation starter there, Potter. Casual.</em></p>
<p>Malfoy’s line of sight darted around the diner once. Bud and Gene were ignoring them, caught in their own lively, well-worn debate about the relative merits of Willie Nelson versus Gordon Lightfoot.</p>
<p>“Yes, I did say that,” he confirmed, his voice flat. “I also said that topic was off limits here.”</p>
<p>Harry could feel Malfoy going cold and distant again. He opened his mouth to press further, but Malfoy spoke first.</p>
<p>“<em>So</em>,” he said, resting his elbows on the table and interlacing his fingers gracefully. “You married the Weasley?”</p>
<p>Thrown off-guard by that, Harry faltered, “Yes, I did, but we were talking about—”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> were talking about. <em>I</em> was catching up with an old school chum.” He smiled in what would have been a perfect imitation of a beatific smile, were there not something icily predatory shifting just under the surface.</p>
<p>“Her name is Ginny. Please don’t call her ‘the Weasley.’”</p>
<p>“You must be very happy together,” Malfoy said. He could hear how snide that had come out. A part of him wondered if he really had to be such a bastard about this.</p>
<p>He reminded himself that it didn’t matter.</p>
<p>Harry Potter was used to Malfoy being derisive and needling. It wouldn’t bother him. Harry Potter wouldn’t lose sleep over Draco Malfoy not being nice, not while he fell asleep beside his loving wife, in a house, probably with—</p>
<p>“I expect you even have a <em>child</em> by now,” Malfoy pushed on, pronouncing the word <em>child</em> as though it was a distasteful concept that he was only dimly aware of. He reached over to swirl his straw in his glass, clinking the ice cubes.</p>
<p>“I have three,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Malfoy choked on a drink of water. “<em>Three</em>?” he coughed. “Jesus. I guess that’s what you get for marrying a Weasley.” He shook his head in genuine disbelief. “What the <em>fuck</em>, Potter. <em>Three children</em>?”</p>
<p>“Careful, Malfoy,” Harry warned him, “don’t you dare say a single word about my kids.”</p>
<p>He had that look on his face, that stubborn righteous Gryffindor look, jaw squared and gaze steady. That look he would get on his face when he was ready to defend someone, and God help you if you didn’t back down, because he was Harry Fucking Potter and he had never learned the concept of retreat.</p>
<p>Malfoy remembered that look all too well. He had been on the receiving end of it more times than he was willing to count, and he’d hated it every single time.</p>
<p>“If anything, that was more a comment about <em>your</em> decisions. I’m sure they’re all… lovely small humans.”</p>
<p>Malfoy studied Harry, hoping that the newfound knowledge of “father of three” might have affected him negatively.</p>
<p>Harry was, unfortunately, still attractive.</p>
<p>“Did you <em>plan</em> to have three children?”</p>
<p>“I don’t even know how you want me to answer that,” Harry said testily.</p>
<p>“So that’s a no.”</p>
<p>Harry stared at his hands, spread flat against the tabletop. He felt his fingers want to curl into fists, dig into his palms, and he willed himself not to start yelling at Malfoy again. Not here.</p>
<p>He wanted very much to start yelling at Malfoy again.</p>
<p>He wanted very much to yell at himself too, for almost replying without thinking first: <em>Nobody </em>plans<em> to have three children</em>.</p>
<p>That helpful voice in his head piped up: <em>It’s not your fault, you know. It’s not your fault that you’re so terrible at being an adult</em>. <em>It’s not your fault that you’re</em>—</p>
<p>“Sorry, no, I get it,” Malfoy said, “of course you wouldn’t let me in on your secret plan to produce your own entire professional Quidditch team. Ruins the whole surprise when you unveil them to the world fifteen years from now.” A quick smile flicked at one corner of his mouth in an expression almost like an apology.</p>
<p>Harry chuckled a little. “Yeah. Got me there. I was going to breed a whole passel of beige gingers for just that very purpose. Too bad my oldest has the coordination of—I dunno, what’s something really clumsy?”</p>
<p>“Longbottom?” Malfoy suggested.</p>
<p>“Hey now,” Harry said. “That’s unfair to Neville.” A fond expression came over his face then, tender and caring, not directed at Malfoy, but at the thought of his child.</p>
<p>Malfoy had seen the look before, on the faces of other parents. “I suppose you’ll want to show me a picture in your wallet now, won’t you.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> want to see a picture of <em>my</em> kids,” Harry said, unconvinced.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Malfoy lied.</p>
<p>Merv came out from the kitchen then, bearing a tray of food.</p>
<p>“Hello there,” he greeted Harry cheerfully, as he set down two bowls of seafood chowder and two lobster rolls. “You must be Alfie’s friend from school. So pleased to meet—”</p>
<p>“Merv,” Malfoy cut in, “Harry here was just about to show me photos of his three children.”</p>
<p>Merv’s eyebrows raised in surprise for only a moment, but then he just looked from Harry to Malfoy and said, “Of course, I’m so glad you’re getting to catch up with each other.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t help but feel there was an entirely different conversation happening in front of him than the one in the actual words being said.</p>
<p>Tucking the tray under his arm, Merv retreated back behind the counter.</p>
<p>“That was Merv,” Malfoy told Harry. “He owns this place with Tony.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Harry said. “He seems very—” <em>Handsome</em>, his brain suggested unhelpfully. “Nice.”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Malfoy said noncommittally. “Eat your chowder and lobster roll, Potter.”</p>
<p>Having overheard the ambient chatter of Bud, Gene, and Tony, Harry had started to pick up the ways their New England accents had started to creep into Malfoy’s posh English drawl, especially in the words where it slipped out strong.</p>
<p>
  <em>Chowdah.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Lobstah</em>.</p>
<p>Harry wondered if Malfoy had noticed. He almost wanted to mention it, but didn’t want to make Malfoy self-conscious enough to try to stop.</p>
<p>Harry found it oddly endearing.</p>
<p>The chowder had a rich tomato broth thick with chunks of fish, potatoes, onion, the speckling of black pepper and fresh herbs. The lobster roll beside it was on a pillowy white bun that had been buttered and grilled on each side. It was split along the top and filled to overflowing with large pieces of lobster meat in the sparsest coating of mayonnaise and lemon.</p>
<p>He took a bite of chowder. It was hot and delicious, and rich enough that Harry wasn’t quite sure how he was expected to finish the entire large bowl.</p>
<p>Digging his wallet out of the pocket of his trousers, he flipped it open and pulled out three small photos stuck in behind his Oyster card.</p>
<p>He set the first one down on the table in front of Malfoy. “James Sirius. My oldest. He just turned seven in November.”</p>
<p>“He’s the clumsy one?” Malfoy asked, looking at the small photo of a boy laughing and waving. “He looks it.”</p>
<p>“He’s a really good kid,” Harry said. “Thoughtful. Smart as paint.”</p>
<p>“You’re <em>sure</em> he’s yours and Ginny’s then?”</p>
<p>“Ha, ha.” Harry rolled his eyes. He set down the second picture. “Albus Severus. He’ll be four come March.”</p>
<p>Malfoy blinked at Harry. “Sorry. Wait. Run that name by me again?”</p>
<p>“Albus Severus,” Harry repeated, that old familiar defensive edge back in his voice.</p>
<p>Malfoy groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “<em>Christ</em>.” After a couple of seconds, he waved a hand in a dismissive flutter and said, “No, never mind, moving on. That’s a conversation for us to have another day. What’s the last one called?”</p>
<p>They both pretended not to notice that Malfoy just implied they would be having more conversations in the future.</p>
<p>“Lily,” Harry said, sliding the photo across the table to sit in line with the other two. “Lily Luna.”</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s a baby,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“It… looks like a baby.”</p>
<p>“Yes. Because <em>she</em> is one.”</p>
<p>“Babies aren’t really my strong suit,” Malfoy said, not sounding particularly sorry, and started in on his lobster roll in a big, expansive bite.</p>
<p>Harry remembered Malfoy back in the Great Hall, the way he ate like a bird, sparse and self-conscious. He tried not to wonder if he’d spent too much time watching Draco Malfoy back then.</p>
<p>“And Ginny’s, what, playing Quidditch?” Malfoy went on, in perfect imitation of polite small talk. “I feel like I heard something about a team looking to draft her, way back before I left England. Just in passing, I don’t really remember, of course.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, she’s still a Chaser for Holyhead.”</p>
<p>“Well. Good for her. Good for both of you. Glad to hear you’re so happy.” And then he took another large bite of lobster roll so he wouldn’t have to say anything else.</p>
<p>Harry stirred his chowder. “Yeah, ‘course,” he said not-very-happily. “Actually. I mean, if I’m going to tell the truth here—”</p>
<p>“Oh, fucking <em>hell</em>, don’t you dare,” Malfoy said. “No. Sorry. Not <em>you</em>. Tony.” He was looking across the diner at the far end of the counter where the big silvery espresso machine sat. “Sorry, hold that thought, I’ll be back in a minute.”</p>
<p>He stood up and Harry watched him rush over to where Tony seemed about to make coffee for Gene.</p>
<p>“No, stop,” Malfoy was saying, “don’t touch my baby, you’re going to hurt her.”</p>
<p>“I know how to use it too,” Tony said. “Kinda.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t quite make out what Malfoy said in response as he gently shoved Tony away with one hand while making a shooing gesture with the other.</p>
<p>Merv was leaning against the counter next to the espresso machine and laughing.</p>
<p>“It’s a cappuccino, thanks,” Gene called from his booth.</p>
<p>“Sure thing, Gene,” Malfoy said. “Coming right up.”</p>
<p>“He’s cute,” Merv murmured into Malfoy’s ear, leaning over to avoid being overheard. “Not my thing, but. I can definitely see the appeal. If you gave him, say, another eight inches in height and about a hundred pounds, then <em>maybe</em> Tony’d have to worry.” He grinned at Tony.</p>
<p>Draco sighed in what he thought was an appropriately tragic way as he ground the beans for Gene’s cappuccino.</p>
<p>“Going <em>that</em> well, huh?” Tony asked quietly.</p>
<p>“He got married and had three kids and I want to die,” Draco muttered, starting to make Gene’s coffee.</p>
<p>“Wanting to die makes you eat half a lobster roll in three bites?” Merv asked.</p>
<p>“Apparently.”</p>
<p>“You looked like you might need an escape for a minute,” Tony agreed.</p>
<p>Merv glanced over at Harry and then leaned even closer over Draco’s shoulder. “Did he actually <em>confirm</em> that he’s still married?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.” Draco bit his lower lip and frowned. “I haven’t managed to ask. How do you ask ‘so did your marriage fail or what’ without sounding like a complete asshole?”</p>
<p>“Oh my God, so help me,” Merv muttered. “Have you no wiles. Here. Finish up Gene’s drink and make your boy something fancy to buy me a minute. I’m going to go do your reconnaissance for you.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Draco said drily. “I owe you one.”</p>
<p>“No, you don’t,” Tony said. “He just wants an excuse to get in someone else’s business and flirt with a cute guy in front of us.”</p>
<p>Stepping away from Malfoy, Merv smiled serenely at Tony and then gave him a wink.</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t hear what Malfoy was saying to his two bosses, but he watched their easy comfortable manner with each other. He watched the way Merv leaned over to talk to Malfoy, their shoulders touching, their heads bowed so close together, close enough to whisper in each other’s ears.</p>
<p>There was a pang in his chest of a feeling he couldn’t quite name as it rose and caught in the back of his throat, turning itself to a confusing jumble of irritation and longing and something like shame.</p>
<p>He turned quickly back around in the booth to focus as hard as he could on his chowder and lobster roll.</p>
<p>And then someone was sliding casually onto the outside edge of the booth seat across from him.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Merv said, resting an elbow on the corner of the table. “Alfie tells me you two went to school together.” He held out his other hand to Harry with a warm smile. “Merv.”</p>
<p>“Harry,” Harry replied, shaking Merv’s hand.</p>
<p>“<em>Wonderful</em> to meet you, Harry.”</p>
<p>Harry decided his initial impression still held true: Merv was a <em>handsome</em> man. He had the kind of face that could be used to sell shaving razors, and his dark brown hair looked as if each strand had naturally arranged itself just <em>so</em> on its own through some kind of magical bargain. As if a person could sell their soul for perfect hair.</p>
<p>“I think I’m supposed to ask you what you do for a living that brings you to the States on business,” Merv said, “but I’ve always felt like asking a person about work was a real non-starter in getting to know someone, don’t you agree?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah, same, so do I,” Harry agreed, maybe a little too eagerly, feeling a rush of relief at the fact he wasn’t going to have to come up with a lie.</p>
<p>Merv beamed. “And, of course, in this day and age, it’s getting a little cliché to start in on questions like: What do you do for joy? What’s your favorite movie? What album would you take to a desert island? If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead… ? You know, everything people used to like to open with to make themselves feel like they’re deep and original.”</p>
<p>He knew he was laying it on a little thick, but he had come over with a <em>purpose</em> and didn’t want to risk even a chance of failure if the guy was even half as oblivious as Alfie pretended to think he was.</p>
<p>Harry was starting to feel out of his depth, but unlike Malfoy, Merv seemed unlikely to make fun of him if he said the wrong thing. There was something safe and inviting in the way Merv looked at him; it was a look like someone holding out their hand to you and promising not to let you get lost.</p>
<p>“Well,” Harry said, “if there’s an album called <em>How to Survive a Desert Island</em>, that’s the one I’d want. And”—he grinned a little—“if I could have dinner with anyone living or dead, I’ll take the living person, thanks.”</p>
<p>Merv laughed. “Very practical.”</p>
<p>“Oh, God no. I’ve never been accused of <em>that</em>, believe me. Ask Mal—Alfie.”</p>
<p>Reaching over to lightly touch the photos still laid out on the table with his fingertips, he observed, “These are your children? They look like good kids.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. I’m rather partial to them myself. Just a bit.”</p>
<p>Harry realized they might be flirting.</p>
<p>He realized he might not mind it if they were.</p>
<p>He had never been good at telling for sure whether someone was flirting or just being regular nice.</p>
<p><em>He might just be friendly. Don’t make more of it than that</em>.</p>
<p>“They’re also clearly all going to inherit their dad’s good looks,” he told Harry with a wink and a smile.</p>
<p>“Really? I mean—I don’t know about <em>that</em>.” His face went a little warm, but he couldn’t fight back a pleased, flattered grin.</p>
<p>“Well, I <em>do</em> know.” Merv looked over to where Malfoy was making a cup of coffee with a serious intensity as though so much might depend on him getting it perfect. “Alfie wasn’t lying.”</p>
<p>“About—?”</p>
<p>“About you being good-looking,” Merv said, open and frank. He swept the photos neatly into a stack and handed them back to Harry. “How long have you been together?”</p>
<p>Harry almost dropped his wallet with a fumble as he opened it to put the pictures away. “How long have who… ? Oh. Me and—Er, well. I’m not anymore, actually.” He shoved his wallet back into his pocket. “Not married, I mean. Not for the past few months.”</p>
<p>Merv was looking at Harry with a hard-to-place expression, something like the careful joy of someone who had a butterfly alight on their hand and wanted to do anything they could to keep from startling it away.</p>
<p>“Alfie doesn’t know that yet, does he,” he said to Harry.</p>
<p>“I hadn’t mentioned. I doubt he’d care, anyway. We were never—never exactly what you’d call <em>friends</em>, back in school.”</p>
<p>Merv nodded at that admission, more serious now. “He’s told me that,” he told Harry cautiously. “He said it was—<em>complicated</em>. He doesn’t talk about it much, but you put things together, in bits and pieces. You get the general idea that his parents were part of…” Merv frowned. “I don’t know, they pulled him into some inner circle of… Well. I’ve gotten the sense from Alfie that you already know the whole story firsthand. You don’t need to hear the abridged version from <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry had watched the way Merv and Tony were with Malfoy. They both treated him with easy familiar affection. He felt safe in believing that wouldn’t change if he agreed with Merv’s implications about Malfoy’s past. “I do know. Yes,” he told Merv. “His parents were—his father, especially—involved with things that nobody deserves to be mixed up in.”</p>
<p>Merv nodded again. “But he doesn’t talk much about it. Understandably.” He looked at Harry with kind eyes. “I get it, you know. I can see entirely how all that would have made any kind of friendship impossible. I don’t blame you for the things I’m sure you thought of him. I’m sure most of them were true, or seemed true, or the difference between <em>seeming</em> true and <em>being</em> true was negligible at best. Doesn’t really matter if you’re claiming to believe something because you <em>really</em> believe it, or because you <em>want</em> to believe you do. It’s causing the same hurt either way, isn’t it? And, God, it’s a kind of hurt you’re more than allowed to feel hard and never want to forgive.”</p>
<p>Harry wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. He had heard sentiments like this before, from people who cared about him, people like Ron and Hermione. But he’d never heard it quite so simply and honestly put before, especially not from someone close to <em>Draco Malfoy</em>.</p>
<p>“I don’t hate him,” Harry told Merv. “Not anymore.” He paused. “And I don’t want anyone to hold all that against him, not <em>now</em>. I can tell this place is important to him, so I don’t want you to think he’s still—”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>Harry</em>.” Merv laughed and reached across the table to give Harry’s hand a squeeze. And then, keeping his hand over Harry’s, he promised, “I’d <em>never</em> keep anyone around as a part of this place if I thought there was even the slightest chance they were still some kind of—whatever exactly it was that Alfie was raised to be.” He met Harry’s eyes with a bittersweet smile. “Look. Harry. I grew up a gay Jewish kid in Queens. There’s some shit I <em>refuse</em> to accommodate, not in this one small good place I’ve helped build. He had to prove his right to be here, after—after I found out. You don’t just earn that for free, especially not… having come from <em>that</em>. I don’t dismiss that lightly, especially not for someone who’s—who’s one of ours. Someone close.”</p>
<p>Harry nodded, understanding.</p>
<p>“He can still be a pain in the ass, though, don’t get me wrong,” Merv added, his gentle smile breaking out into a grin.</p>
<p>“Did you just call me a pain in the ass?” Malfoy asked, emerging from the other side of the counter with a large red mug on a matching saucer.</p>
<p>Merv laughed and stood up. “Sure did. I was telling Harry here how you’ve grown and matured as a person.”</p>
<p>“How dare you accuse me of self-improvement,” Malfoy retorted mildly, as he set the cup and saucer down in front of Harry.</p>
<p>“My mistake,” Merv said. “Won’t happen again.”</p>
<p>As Malfoy slipped back into the booth across from Harry, Merv swept a hand in Malfoy’s general direction as though he were a gameshow prize. “Just imagine,” he said to Harry, “a mere three and a half years ago, I had this skinny impertinent entitled twink show up at my diner to ask for a job.”</p>
<p>Malfoy regarded that pronouncement archly. “Oh? And what am I now?”</p>
<p>“An impertinent somewhat-less-entitled twink who’s much better insulated against the cold Maine winters.” Merv grinned. “See? Self-improvement.”</p>
<p>Malfoy stirred his chowder and raised an eyebrow at Merv. “Better insulated? Is that what we’re calling it?”</p>
<p>Merv nodded. “It’s a vital component to survival.”</p>
<p>Eyeing Merv’s slender frame, Malfoy suggested, “So you’ll be freezing to death any day now.”</p>
<p>“Nope,” Merv replied with a broad smile, “that’s what I’ve got Tony for.” As he turned to go, he paused to incline his head in Harry’s direction and give Malfoy a meaningful look. “Might be family,” he said. “Either way, go easy on ‘im, kiddo. He’s a good one.”</p>
<p>Harry looked down at the latte in front of him. It was poured with precise care into a wide mug, so that the foam formed an almost filigreed motif reminiscent of a fiddlehead fern with most of its fronds unfurled and spread open, but with the top still in a curl.</p>
<p>“Wow,” he said. “So this is what you do.”</p>
<p>“Don’t patronize me, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t.” He took a sip from the middle of the bottom edge in an attempt to avoid messing up the design on top. “I was impressed that you were really good at something, <em>and</em> that it’s something actually <em>nice</em>. Everything else I’ve ever seen you do well was designed specifically to get under my skin.”</p>
<p>Malfoy put his hand on his chest in mock sincerity. “My God, Potter, I can’t tell you how much it means to hear you say that. After all this time, I finally know my hard work was properly rewarded.” He gazed across the table at Harry in sarcastic wide-eyed seriousness. “Your years of frustration with me are <em>deeply</em> appreciated.”</p>
<p>“<em>Ha</em>.” Harry took another sip of coffee; Malfoy pretended not to watch him lick the foam from the corner of his mouth. “So glad I bring that kind of joy to—what was it?—an entitled, winterized twink.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes shone. He was making fun of Malfoy again, but somehow it wasn’t exasperating now.</p>
<p>“Winterized?” Malfoy repeated. “That implies a certain seasonal impermanence, which—I hate to break it to you—is very much <em>not</em> the case.”</p>
<p>“<em>Good</em>,” Harry answered automatically, his voice firm and definite.</p>
<p>Malfoy looked a little surprised at the conviction in that response. “Oh?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry said, then felt a flash of embarrassment.</p>
<p>Malfoy wanted to be pleased by that answer but was afraid to take such a foolish risk. Instead, he took a bite of chowder and said, “At any rate, I don't think you get to be a twink anymore when you're so much closer to thirty than you are to twenty.”</p>
<p>“You make me feel like we’re getting old.”</p>
<p>“Says the father of three,” Malfoy commented with a cool smirk. He took the last bite of his lobster roll and asked, “What did Merv want? Other than to chat you up, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Was <em>that</em> what we were doing?” <em>I thought so. I think I </em>hoped<em> so</em>. “But isn’t he—I mean, aren’t he and Tony—?”</p>
<p>“Yes. But that doesn’t mean Merv’s not allowed to flirt with cute guys.” Malfoy smirked a little. “Of course, I don’t think there’s a power in the world that could stop him doing that whenever he wants.”</p>
<p>“But I thought he seemed… good,” Harry said. “Nice. Not like the sort of person who comes on to other people in front of their partner.”</p>
<p>“First off,” Malfoy said. “Merv was flirting with you <em>recreationally</em>. He wasn’t trying to <em>sleep</em> with you.” <em>Not </em>you<em>. And not for Tony’s sake, but mine.</em> “Secondly, you can be both. Or at least, Merv can. Impossibly kind but also entirely shameless.” He took another bite of chowder. “<em>Impossibly</em> kind. I would claim that he was my role model, but, let’s be honest, Potter, I’m never going to be even half-suited to be either kind <em>or</em> shameless. After all, you and I both know that I’m just the last in a long line of uptight bastards.” He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t actually answer my question.”</p>
<p>Harry tried to seem distracted by his lobster roll. “Oh, you know, just chatting. My kids, my divorce, you. Your parents. What album to take to a desert island.”</p>
<p>“I beg pardon—Your <em>divorce</em>?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t tell me about that!”</p>
<p>“It hadn’t come up! I don’t know that it’s any of your business anyway, come to think of it. It’s not as if I was coming here to catch you up on my personal life, as though you’ve ever cared about <em>that</em> in the slightest. So, yes, fine, if you must know: Ginny and I got divorced. It didn’t work out, so if you want to recalibrate your insults accordingly, go ahead. Don’t want to make you feel like you’re working off outdated material when you make fun of me for being happily married to my schooldays sweetheart with our two-point-five kids. So if you want to take the mickey out of me for not managing to pull <em>that</em> off, I s’pose that’s your right.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked unimpressed. “Clearly this is still a sensitive subject.” He reached across the table to take a sip of Harry’s latte. Replacing the mug delicately on the saucer, he asked, “So which of your children is the point-five?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You suggested I was going to give you shit for your two-point-five kids. So I was wondering whether which of your kids I should only count as a half. Does one of them look awfully like the milkman? Is <em>that</em> why the divorce?”</p>
<p>“Okay, one: Ginny would <em>never</em> have cheated on me. And two: What century do you think we live in that we’d have a <em>milkman</em>?”</p>
<p>“Postman then?”</p>
<p>“You mean… like an <em>owl</em>?”</p>
<p>Malfoy fought to look serious through the laughter he was holding back. “Yes, Potter. An owl. Think about it: Did you ever come home early to find a suspicious number of feathers in the bedroom? Are any of your children nocturnal? The middle one definitely looks like he might have a taste for dead mice.”</p>
<p>Harry was laughing too now. “Oh my <em>God</em>, Malfoy.” He shook his head, took a drink of coffee, and sighed. “No. No, it was just—Dunno, the boring usual thing, I guess. ‘It just didn’t work out.’ There’s no dramatic story here, there’s just… Two people and something of a mess, when it all comes down to it.” He chewed his thumbnail for a moment, thinking. “When we started having to break the news to people, friends tried to find nice ways to suggest that maybe we’d rushed in too fast and young. And that was part of it, sure. The people who were closest and had watched the whole thing crumble didn’t tend to want to give us an itemized list of everything they’d seen go wrong. They figured we already knew all <em>that</em>, I reckon.” He chuckled a little, finding the whole thing almost kind of funny for the first time he could remember. “I remember Seamus saying, ‘Well, you two are both very strong personalities.’ He thought that was a lot more diplomatic than it actually came out sounding. But that’s… probably a lot of it, honestly.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed and gave Malfoy that cautious look that meant he was sure he was about to get insulted but hadn’t quite figured out how yet.</p>
<p>“That was surprisingly candid,” Malfoy said. It came out a little dismissive, and Malfoy hoped he’d get points for at least not being outright <em>mean</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Baby steps. You’ve spent most of your life working to make pushing Harry Potter away something easy and second nature, after all.</em>
</p>
<p><em>If you could make Harry hate you and make it stick, you’d both be safer for it</em>.</p>
<p>“Didn’t really fancy the idea of you trying to ferret out some scandalous secret that I don’t actually have,” Harry said. “Hate to disappoint you, but I reckon I got married boringly and then got divorced boringly and had a boringly rocky marriage in between.”</p>
<p>“I’m not disappointed.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. I think.” Harry finished his latte and set the mug and saucer aside. “What about you?”</p>
<p>“What about me, what?”</p>
<p>“You have someone?”</p>
<p>“What kind of question is <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “The kind of question you ask when you’re supposed to be catching up with someone in a tiny diner where we’re not supposed to bring up anything that shouldn’t be overheard. Y’know: How’s your marriage? Oh, it’s over, what about you?”</p>
<p>“I never even <em>had</em> a marriage to ruin.”</p>
<p>Harry shot him a very impatient look.</p>
<p>“Fine.” Malfoy rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t have a someone right now. Not in <em>that</em> sense, anyway. Not a steady boyfriend all my own. That hasn’t been my forte, if we’re going for candid.” <em>I did have</em>, he could have added, <em>or thought I did</em>.</p>
<p>“Well, you <em>do</em> have quite a list of men you won’t date. Fans of sport and musical theatre, was it? And so on and so forth.”</p>
<p>“A person has to develop such a list from <em>somewhere</em>, Potter.” <em>Mistakes me for someone who can be convinced that going to the gym is a “fun date activity.”</em> “I imagine my chronic solitude makes a certain amount of sense.”<em> Suggests that I’m not nearly as attractive as I think I am to make up for the rest of my personality</em>. “I mean. That is to say. The town is small enough that if I date a local and it goes poorly, I still run into them more than I’d like. And if I date a summer tourist… Well, then it’s a summer tourist, you know? So I’ve managed to avoid both those categories so far, and those are really the only two types of people I meet.” He tried to laugh lightly, as if the whole situation was trivial and a bit preposterous. “Plus I’ve been told that I’m—what was it—oh, yes, insufferable and high-maintenance.”</p>
<p>“Who told you <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>“Other than you, you mean?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry said. “Because we know you don’t care what<em> I </em>think of you. But you look actually almost bothered by it. I didn’t know anything could actually get to you.”</p>
<p>Malfoy gave him that withering glance he still had the muscle memory to pull off when he needed it. “Oh, Potter, having an ex where things ended poorly is <em>hardly</em> a special and unique experience that only <em>you</em> get to have.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry. D’you want to… I dunno, talk about it?” Harry wasn’t sure he was cut out for this kind of conversation, not with Draco Malfoy, but he had no idea what else he was supposed to say.</p>
<p>“With you? <em>Fuck</em> no.” Malfoy waved the whole notion aside, and quipped, “I got the whole state of Maine in the breakup anyway, so I figure I came out all right.”</p>
<p>“You really <em>do</em> love it here,” Harry observed, a note of astonishment in his voice.</p>
<p>He couldn’t remember the last time he’d truly loved a place, not since Hogwarts.</p>
<p>“I do, most of the time,” Malfoy admitted. “More than I’ve ever liked any other place, at any rate. I like truly having my own <em>home</em> for the first time in my life, even if it’s the size of a shoebox. I like Tony and Merv. And I like the Breakfast. I like making coffee. I like having regulars, even if I don’t actually <em>like</em> all of them. I like Bud and Gene. I even like what happens to Ogunquit in the summer, even if I hate it at the same time.”</p>
<p>“Not a big fan of tourist season, I take it?” Harry asked. “A whole season of you having to be nice to crowds of strangers? Sounds like your nightmare.”</p>
<p>“It’s a goddamn hellscape, Potter,” Malfoy agreed, “from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I hate it. But I wouldn’t change it for anything either. The weather is beautiful and the water is so <em>blue</em> and the old houses look like paintings in the sun, and then there are floods of tourists, and I like people like <em>us</em> having a place like <em>this</em> to go, but. I suppose it’s a bit like the local regulars. I like that they’re <em>here</em>, I just don’t like having to <em>deal</em> with all of them. And it’s not, say, anywhere near as bad as Fire Island—thank God—but it’s still a lot to contend with, if you’re not… part of all <em>that</em>.” He wasn’t sure Harry could possibly understand what he was talking about, but he didn’t feel like trying to explain in any more detail what it felt like being <em>him</em> in the middle of <em>that</em>, so he just regarded Harry shrewdly and commented, “Of course, with that body and that bone structure, I’m sure <em>you’d</em> do incredibly well here if you came through some summer.”</p>
<p>“I—Wait. What?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I had thought we were trying a new thing where we compliment each other. Were we not?” Malfoy was smirking at Harry again, but his eyes gleamed with something that was closer to warmth than spite. “Pity. I take it back then. You’re a complete disaster and it’s no wonder Ginny turned to the sympathetic waiting wings of the local post owl.” He finished the last of his chowder the way traditional etiquette dictated: <em>Tilt the bowl away from you; do not dare make an unseemly scraping sound with the spoon as you scoop away</em>. “Let’s just leave it at the fact that it's also the season when they need to hire a summer barista.”</p>
<p>“You <em>do</em> seem very territorial about the espresso machine.”</p>
<p>“There’s that, yes, and also the fact that the summer hire is inevitably freshly twenty-one and on summer hols from university, and is tan and cute and goes to the gym <em>sometimes</em> but has abs like he goes <em>all</em> the time, so despite the fact that he’s not half as good at my job as <em>I</em> am, he outearns me in tips nine days of ten. And it’s not as though he needs that extra money, because God knows he’s not buying his own drinks when he goes out on the town.”</p>
<p>“Wow, that’s not specific or bitter at <em>all</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s an observation, Potter, not a grudge. I was just trying to describe my situation for you. And it’s not any one specific person; it’s a pattern. And I get it. It’s fine. But <em>I’m</em> not the one who spends the summer having hot tourists tip him twenty on a latte with their name and phone number written on the bill. Nobody’s falling over each other to flirt with the surly Brit when they’ve got this sunny muscle twink with a smile like an open invitation. Which is, of course, why Merv keeps hiring them.”</p>
<p>“Because he <em>also</em> wants to flirt with them?”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>.” Malfoy went defensive at that, more protective of Merv than Harry had ever seen Malfoy be of himself. “He would <em>never</em>. He hires them because he <em>was</em> that kid once—young and gorgeous and too charming and too trusting—so he tries to make sure at least one of them stays mostly out of trouble for the summer. He’s a real adopter of stray puppies and lost causes.”</p>
<p>Harry looked over his shoulder and saw that Merv had long since gone back into the kitchen and Tony had basically taken up residence in Bud and Gene’s booth, where the talk had turned enthusiastically back to truck engines.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m getting that about him,” Harry assured Malfoy. “When we were talking, he brought up your paren—”</p>
<p>Malfoy held up a hand to stop him. “No. We can talk about that if we must, but not here. Are you done eating?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded, so Malfoy got up and gathered their dishes, ignoring Tony’s protests against him busing his own table when he was off the clock.</p>
<p>Merv emerged from the pantry with a clipboard when he heard Draco come into the kitchen.</p>
<p>“We’re about to head out,” Draco told him. “Thanks for—dinner. And. You know.”</p>
<p>“Of course, kiddo. You holding up?”</p>
<p>“Maybe. I think he might be almost halfway to not actively hating me anymore, which is more than I really ought to have hoped for.”</p>
<p>Merv put his hands on Draco’s shoulders and studied him critically like a problem that might need solving. “Are you making it any easier for him to stop hating you? Or are you doing that thing you do, where you make people <em>want</em> to keep a safe distance from you?”</p>
<p>Draco scowled.</p>
<p>“Hmm, okay. That answers that.” Merv sighed and shook his head. “Look, Alfie. I’m sure Harry knows as well as anyone that you’re goddamn impossible a lot of the time, but try’n meet him halfway here, okay? Because, sure, maybe you figure if he decides you’re still the same person he used to know, he’ll leave and you won’t have a chance to feel hurt, but that’s some real bullshit, kiddo. Wanna know why?”</p>
<p>“Honestly? Not really. Let me hold onto my delusions.”</p>
<p>“The reason <em>why</em>,” Merv told him, ignoring Draco’s answer, “is because if he goes home believing you haven’t changed, that means he’ll be going home believing you’re the person he knew a decade ago. And by what you’ve said, the person Harry last knew was your father’s son.” He looked Draco in the eyes and moved one hand to cup Draco’s cheek, not letting him look away as he said, “And, Alfie, if <em>I</em> were him and I thought there was even a <em>chance</em> you might still be that person, I would <em>never want to speak to you again</em>.”</p>
<p>Draco swallowed. “So this is what they call tough love, huh.” He meant to sound sardonic, but it fell flat.</p>
<p>“See. <em>That</em>. Don’t do that. Don’t be an asshole. That’s the <em>very</em> achievable bar you have to meet here: Not being an asshole to someone you don’t even <em>want</em> to be an asshole to. You’re not doing either one of you any favors by pushing him away.”</p>
<p>“But I’m scared,” Draco protested, the words slipping out before he could stop them.</p>
<p>“Sure you are. Doesn’t matter.” Merv looked at Draco’s face, then heaved a sigh filled with love and sympathy, pulling him into a tight hug. “The worst thing that can happen here is he breaks your heart when you show it to him. But you’ve gotta take the risk and do it anyway. And if that happens, Tony and I’ll be here to help you pick up the pieces. You know that. We’ve done it for you before; we’ll do it again.”</p>
<p>“This would be worse than last time.”</p>
<p>“Maybe more worth it, though.” He smiled at Draco and brushed back a lock of pale blond hair that had fallen forward over his eyes. “Now get out of here and have the courage to be honest with someone about the fact that you aren’t a horrible person anymore.”</p>
<p>“I still have more than my share of shortcomings.”</p>
<p>“Sure, but they’re navigable. If someone wants to try. But you’ve got to give them a chance to want to.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Back in the front of the diner, Tony was back behind the counter again, talking to Harry, who was holding a pair of sky-blue cardboard pastry boxes.</p>
<p>“April’s when you want to come back,” Tony was saying. “Absolutely the best month for whale watching. Also it gets beautiful here in spring. That’s why I could never bring myself to leave, I think.” He grinned. “Well, the fact that it’s beautiful here, and the fact that this stubborn New York queen showed up and somehow got me to open a diner with him.”</p>
<p>“Somehow,” Harry echoed, smiling.</p>
<p>“Yeah, just because we’d follow each other to the ends of the Earth, he seems to think that the end of the Earth we’re gonna stake a claim to is this little old Formica-and-chrome spot. But I guess he’s got something there; this is hardly the worst corner of the world anyone’s ever made theirs.”</p>
<p>Harry was listening to Tony with the rapt wonder of a person who was seeing some reality they had only imagined in dreams. “I wish I had something like that. I mean, I know I’d be rubbish at running a diner, but I can’t say I’ve ever had a ‘corner of the world’ feeling about filling out paperwork for a living.” He saw Malfoy and held up the pastry boxes. “Tony gave us two slices of pie for the road.”</p>
<p>“The lemon chess,” Tony said, “not the coconut cream.”</p>
<p>“Good, so you’ve met me,” Malfoy told him.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure each of these slices is almost a quarter of the pie,” Harry commented.</p>
<p>“Good,” Malfoy said, “so Tony’s met me.”</p>
<p>Once they had reached the bottom of the front stoop outside, Harry turned to Malfoy and said, “So… If you wanted to point me back towards the Orchard House, that’s fine. I feel like I might have imposed myself enough for one day.”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy said. “No. You don’t have to go back yet. I don’t feel like you’ve had a chance to ask me half the things you wanted to over dinner.”</p>
<p>Harry looked dubious. “You mean you’d actually answer my questions if I asked them?”</p>
<p>Malfoy hesitated. “I can try. No promises, though.”</p>
<p>Maybe it wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>Maybe it was <em>far</em> from enough.</p>
<p>But it was a start.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Taxi" by Harry Chapin.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Five</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>But I was born impatient</em><br/>
<em>And I was born unkind</em><br/>
<em>But I refuse to believe I have to be</em><br/>
<em>The same person I was born when I die</em><br/>
<em>‘Cause change is all right</em><br/>
<em>Change is all right</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>So</em>,” Malfoy said as they trudged back through the town, “you wanted to hear about the time Merv barely spoke to me for an entire week?”</p>
<p>Harry’s stride alongside Malfoy faltered in shock at that and he had to run a couple steps to catch back up. “<em>Merv</em>? I can’t imagine Merv not speaking to someone. I can’t imagine Merv not <em>speaking</em>, period.”</p>
<p>“Yes, well, finding out the barista you hired three months prior comes from what one can only describe as a family of posh Neo-Nazis would be a tough pill for <em>anyone</em> to swallow,” Malfoy said. “Let alone Merv, who thought he <em>trusted</em> me. He didn’t owe me <em>anything</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry wavered. “I dunno, ‘posh Neo-Nazis’ seems a bit too—”</p>
<p>“Harsh?” Malfoy finished for him. “It’s not. You <em>know</em> it’s not. Potter, don’t you dare try to soften that from some misguided attempt at kindness. I’m not too weak now to face the truth. I haven’t been for a long time.”</p>
<p>Harry was quiet, not sure what he was supposed to say to that. Part of him wanted to argue Malfoy on that, to make it seem a little easier, a little more forgivable. Even though he knew it wasn’t. Even though he knew Malfoy was right; he had <em>always</em> known Malfoy was right; he could still remember vividly a time when he was <em>furious</em> at the very thought that Malfoy wasn’t able to see the thing that he’d just admitted to knowing.</p>
<p>“You think it should have been obvious all along,” Malfoy said, no accusation in his voice. “You could see how clear it was which side was the right one.” He gazed somewhere into the middle distance, looking not at the streetlamps or the buildings along Main Street, but back into the vague shapes of memory. “I couldn’t. And then I started to see it—too little, too late—and still I pretended I didn’t. I kept in line with the cause anyway as much as I could force myself to do it.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy,” Harry said. “You don’t have to—”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked at him, his face hard to read. “Have you had to hear too many of these apologies already? Have they all paraded their guilt before the Boy Who Lived so they can prove to the world that they’ve reformed and changed their ways? Have you had to pretend to forgive people you knew were lying through their teeth? Did they fake a tear or two of remorse for the pages of the Daily Prophet?”</p>
<p>Harry looked at his feet, kicking streaks into the slush and salt with the toes of his Chelsea boots, scraping them roughly along the ground with each step. “No. I avoided the trials, unless I had to be there to testify. But then I only stayed as long as I had to. Maybe they had things they hoped to say to me, I dunno, but I figure half of it would be cruel and half of it would be selfish appeals to my human decency. I couldn’t deal with… with <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s not fair, is it, to make you listen to this, just because <em>I </em>want to say it. Completely selfishly, I’ve no doubt.”</p>
<p>Harry stopped walking and turned to face Malfoy, meeting and holding his gaze with steady, earnest eyes.</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>,” he said. “No, it’s different. <em>You’re</em> different. I want to hear it, whatever it is.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked back at Harry, a more complicated set of emotions flashing across his face: nervousness, defiance, gratitude, sorrow, uncertainty, surrender. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I admit I once imagined getting the chance to—to talk to you someday, but I never thought it would be in Maine, in front of a beach souvenir shop in the middle of January, years too late to be worth a damn.” He thought for a moment, grinding his lower lip under his front teeth, but met Harry’s gaze evenly. “I was wrong,” he said. “I was so wrong. And I could try to claim it wasn’t my fault, because I was raised to believe all that from birth. I could pretend I couldn’t help the things I bought as truth. But it’s not as though I didn’t have the choice. It’s not as though I was sheltered away from other ways of thinking. I went to school with people who saw the world in ways I didn’t. I <em>lived</em> with all of you, went to <em>classes</em> with you every day, I—I had the chance to change my mind years before I actually did. And I didn’t.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy—”</p>
<p>“Shut up a minute, Potter.” One corner of his mouth turned up for a moment, but it was too sad an expression to quite count as a smile. “I chose to keep believing the lies that made <em>me</em> somehow superior by being born to the right parents. The ‘right’ bloodline.” He made a pair of quotation marks tiredly with the hand that wasn’t holding the bakery boxes from Tony. “So I was better than all of you. By birth, by blood, I was better than Granger, no matter how smart she was, no matter how brilliant a witch she turned out to be. It was undeserved, I was told, it was against the order of things. She would have to learn her place. I was better than you, no matter how much everyone else thought you were brave and wonderful. They were all so stupid, so gullible, so wrong, thinking you were some kind of second coming. They would see. They would learn. They would come to know better when you finally fell.” The words came out of his mouth hard and even, each bitter syllable another step in a long hard march. “<em>That</em> was supposed to be the moment I was waiting for. I already knew who you were when we met in Diagon Alley. I already knew Harry Potter was a symbol only fools believed in. Because you were weak and impure and <em>nothing</em> compared to Voldemort. I <em>knew</em> you were destined to be proven wanting. I <em>knew</em> you were destined to fail. Your death would be our victory. And we would celebrate. <em>I </em>would celebrate.”</p>
<p>Harry wanted so much to say <em>anything</em> right then. He knew that he felt <em>something</em> hearing this, and felt it so strongly that he was nearly holding his breath, as his heart seemed to shiver with something like the adrenaline of anger. But it wasn’t anger, not exactly.</p>
<p>What it was, was a feeling that robbed him of knowing what to say.</p>
<p>None of this should have been news to him, but for the fact that it was coming from Malfoy, that it was being offered up as a confession, an apology, a penance. And not a threat.</p>
<p>He looked away, focused on the glow of one streetlamp far down the road, and clenched and unclenched his fingers inside his borrowed mittens.</p>
<p>“So I can’t excuse those things,” Malfoy continued. “I can’t excuse the fact I went along with so much that should have sickened and repelled any person with a single shred of goodness in them. I can’t excuse the fact it was so easy to convince myself that people I knew, people I saw every single day, were inferior and less than and maybe deserved to die, if it came to that. I can’t excuse the fact I was willing to go along with it as long as I did, far past the point I started to question everything I’d ever learned. And I convinced myself that my options were either to keep toeing the line I was raised for, or… it was over for me. Which is some <em>bullshit</em>, Potter, don’t think I don’t know that now. And don’t think that I don’t realize that the worst fates I imagined for myself were still the choice I should have made over the choice I <em>kept</em> making. Over and over.”</p>
<p>Malfoy’s voice was getting hoarse with a choked sound that hitched the back of his throat like swallowed tears.</p>
<p>“But in the end, you <em>did</em> help us, when you—”</p>
<p>“Oh, please. Don’t heap any praise on me for giving you the smallest last-ditch assistance possible. I already heard that speech from you at my trial, remember? And it’s not that I’m ungrateful; I’m more than well aware that it was <em>Harry Potter</em> testifying in my defense that got me down from ten years to three. But we’ve got no audience here, Potter. It’s all right. We can admit that all I really did was not turn you over for immediate execution and let you take a wand. That’s not heroic. That’s not even enough to count as being a decent host to someone in my house.”</p>
<p>Harry reached out on some instinct he didn’t understand, and clasped a hand around Malfoy’s wrist. “Malfoy. You don’t have to…”</p>
<p>Malfoy wrenched away. “No. Let me fucking <em>finish</em> this.” He fixed Harry with those light gray eyes—the color of a frozen lake, a snow sky—fringed with long pale lashes. They were wide and filled with a desperate mix of sorrow and pleading. “I kept making that choice. <em>I kept making that choice</em>. I didn’t even <em>try</em> to get out until I was absolutely sure it was all falling apart from the inside, and even then, I tried to keep one foot in the door, just in case. Just in case it might save my skin. Just in case we stood a chance. Even though I knew we didn’t. By the time Hogwarts happened, we were so far past our <em>Triumph of the Will</em> honeymoon phase and careening fast toward a bunker and petrol.”</p>
<p>“Bloody <em>hell</em>, Malfoy.” Harry’s eyes were wide, glistening too bright and too green in the lamplight.</p>
<p>Malfoy shook his head at the tone of objection in Harry’s voice. “I <em>told</em> you I didn’t think it was overstating things. But I stuck around, because I thought I had to stay as long as I could stomach trying to pretend there might be even a <em>sliver</em> of a chance for us.”</p>
<p>“It’s still an <em>us</em> for you?”</p>
<p>“It has to be,” he told Harry. “There’s no atonement in distancing myself from all of this, especially not with you. <em>You</em> know. <em>You</em> were there. <em>You</em> were more there than anyone else. So you of anyone should know better than to give me a free pass for my actions. Voldemort’s circle <em>was</em> my <em>us</em>. I chose that. And you can try to tell me I was forced into it, but you know I didn’t have to be. I could have chosen differently. I was given so many chances to change my mind about so many things. I could have had the guts to take even <em>one</em> of those chances. ‘It was too hard’ and ‘I was too scared’ felt like good enough excuses once. But they aren’t.” Malfoy swallowed. “And I don’t think… I don’t think ‘I’m sorry’ is enough to fix that. But I am. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to tell me it’s okay. It’s not anyone’s job to make me feel better about my past, least of all <em>yours</em>. I know what I did. I’ve come to terms with it, and part of coming to terms was accepting the fact I’d deserve any anger and distrust anyone still feels for me.”</p>
<p>Harry was quiet for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, he nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching it tumble out in a cloud against the cold night air. “I… I never actually expected to get that from anyone. I never expected anyone to <em>say</em> all that so I could tell them that they’re right.” He wrapped his arms around himself. It was as if his body had forgotten for the past few minutes how cold it was, every fiber of his existence focused entirely on the flood of confession pouring out of Malfoy. “Everything you said, it’s all true. I agree with you. I wish… I wish I’d been given the chance, just once, to tell people that I don’t forgive them the choices they made. That they don’t deserve that from me, not until they’ve <em>earned</em> it somehow, I don’t have any idea <em>how</em>. I don’t know how most of them could even <em>start</em> to atone.” He looked at Malfoy, weary with an anger he was so tired of having to carry. “But the thing is, none of them ever asked for my forgiveness, so I never even had the <em>chance</em> to tell them that they can’t have it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was quiet. <em>Yes</em>, he wanted to say, <em>you’re right not to forgive them</em>.</p>
<p>But he couldn’t.</p>
<p>As much as he felt it to be true, he couldn’t say aloud something that also came to mean, <em>Yes, you’re right not to forgive me</em>.</p>
<p>After the long few days when Merv had needed time to work through what Draco had told him and Draco had given him that time, Merv had come back and sat with him and asked questions in a voice more gentle and caring than Draco felt he deserved.</p>
<p><em>I didn’t try to get out until I was seventeen</em>, Draco had told him. <em>I’m ashamed it took me that long. I was years too late.</em></p>
<p><em>Years? </em>Merv had repeated. <em>You would have been just a kid </em>years<em> earlier</em>.</p>
<p>Draco had stared at Merv, uncomprehending.</p>
<p>Harry understood. Harry understood that neither of them had ever been just a kid.</p>
<p>Harry understood that Malfoy didn’t deserve amnesty for how young he was.</p>
<p>Harry didn’t forgive him.</p>
<p>That was okay. That was as it should be.</p>
<p>Caught deep in thought, Harry fidgeted in front of Malfoy, knitting his brow, glaring at the ground as if there might be an answer in the concrete and rock salt, chewing his lower lip, scratching his mittened fingers along every line of his scar in restless zigs and zags.</p>
<p>Then he snapped his eyes back up to Malfoy’s, flashing green and fierce with intensity. “Malfoy,” he said, “I think I might want to forgive you.”</p>
<p>Malfoy caught his breath. “You don’t have to,” he told Harry after a pause.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t asking you to forgive me.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“I <em>told</em> you I didn’t think I deserved forgiveness.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Harry said again. “That’s why—That’s why I feel like I might be able to give it. That doesn’t mean I <em>do</em>; you’re not forgiven <em>yet</em>. But I might be able to, <em>maybe</em>, <em>someday</em>, in the future. I <em>want</em> to be able to one day. Because you… You’re the one with the least to atone for, and you’re the only one who’s ever even tried. I didn’t realize until I heard you how much I wanted to hear <em>just one person</em> acknowledge the things you said to me.”</p>
<p>Malfoy almost-laughed, but there wasn’t any mirth behind it. “Yes, well, it’s a pity the person who finally told you what you deserved to hear made you freeze your ass off standing outside in the cold to hear it.” His mouth made a shape like a smile. It wasn’t a happy expression, but it was soft and closer to kind than Harry had ever seen Malfoy look. “You’re starting to shiver, you know. Maybe Merv actually had a point about proper insulation being vital to survival here. Come along, let’s get you inside.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Somewhere past Main Street, when they were back to walking in the road because the already-narrow sidewalks had been made even narrower by snowbanks, Harry felt the need to clarify: “I didn’t say that I <em>had</em> forgiven you yet, mind.”</p>
<p>“No. God. I know that.” Malfoy cleared his throat. “Also. To be entirely honest. I also don’t think I’m actually mad at <em>you</em> for what you came here to try to make me do. It’s not as though that were <em>your</em> idea.” He pressed his lips together as though keeping back a smile. “I’m just mad at you for being such a dick about it.”</p>
<p>“<em>Right</em>. Because <em>you’ve</em> never been any such thing to <em>me</em>.” Harry rolled his eyes and, without thinking, knocked his shoulder against Malfoy’s arm as they walked. It was a little familiar gesture he’d used a hundred times with Hermione and Ron and others, just a friendly casual nudge of <em>I’m just giving you a hard time</em>.</p>
<p>Malfoy made a surprised sound, a little gasp of breath a bit like a laugh. And then managed an arch half-smile as he said, “Oh, come now, Potter, do you need me to run through my whole apology speech just said a second time? I know you were never one for paying attention during lectures at school, but <em>really</em>.”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t want to hear all <em>that</em> again,” Harry replied. “Or… No, I sort of do. I hated <em>listening</em> to it, but I’m glad I <em>heard</em> it.” He was quiet a moment, thinking over everything Malfoy had said. “Was that true, what you said about everything being on its way to falling apart with the Death Eaters?”</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded. “That can’t possibly shock you to hear.”</p>
<p>“Well, yeah, a little. There were still so many of you—of them—and the way they showed up in force at… at Hogwarts, you know? It seemed…” Harry felt something catch hard inside him at the memory, like a cold hook twisting into his solar plexus. In a deep back corner of his mind, in one of the cupboards he tried to keep closed but never could—one of the ones prone to springing open in the dead of night, in bad dreams—something stirred and tried to start pouring out in wisps of fog under the crack of the door he held shut against it. “It seemed like so <em>much</em> that day,” he finished, his voice falling to a stilted hitch of a whisper.</p>
<p>An old echo of fear played over his eyes as he looked out into the road ahead of them, as he tried to stop himself inside from bending to look through the unlockable keyhole into the things that he didn’t want to see again. The memories he didn’t want to think about, but would still take out and examine over and over and over.</p>
<p>He put on that Gryffindor look, chin tilted and squared, shoulders set.</p>
<p>Malfoy watched Harry’s face and recognized what he saw, but pretended not to notice. “I know,” he said. “I know it seemed that way. The Death Eaters could get it together to rally for battle or murder, but… But, Christ, things were crumbling fast on the inside.” He turned them down the second-to-last street to his house. “See, here’s the thing, Potter. If you’re Voldemort and your plan is to win over a bunch of mentally unstable sadists by promising them the freedom to do the things they’ve always wanted, eventually you’ll have created a situation you can’t entirely control. Well, partly sadists, and partly the kinds of cruel rich heartless bastards who think the cards will always favor <em>them</em>, so they can write a few large checks to the cause and commit a few choice war crimes and host the inner circle at their manor like the world’s worst society ball that lasts months and months, and always pride themselves on not being like <em>the others</em>—the mad dangerous ones, the Bellatrixes and Greybacks and Selwyns of the gang—oh no, <em>we’re</em> reasonable upright citizens, doing what we must for the reasonable upright cause of restoring a proper order to society, where some—<em>us</em>—are naturally superior to the rest—<em>them</em>. <em>You</em>.” This wasn’t what he had meant to say. He hadn’t meant to keep <em>talking</em> like this, no longer even answering Harry’s question. It was as though he had accidentally chipped too much away at the floodgates he hadn’t known he’d built inside himself. And here they were in a torrent, all the things he had been carrying for a decade now, all the things he never had a chance to say aloud to someone who <em>knew</em>. “The men like my father and his friends, like my friends and their fathers, like my father, my <em>own damned father</em>”—<em>What </em>is<em> this? Am I even making </em>sense<em> anymore? Oh God</em>—“and their carrot and their stick of honor and duty. And if your child needs to sit among people like—<em>like that</em>—in service of you, then that <em>must</em> be what the right thing looks like—”</p>
<p>Harry had stopped them walking; Malfoy hadn’t even noticed until he stopped talking.</p>
<p>Harry started to reach forward, as though to touch Malfoy the way he had seen Harry do so many times comfort his friends in those last months.</p>
<p>
  <em>Under the sun, in what had been green grass only hours before, Harry reaching out to touch Neville on his cheeks wet with blood and tears, to push his honey hair back from his face, matted and half-dried to a thick burgundy rust.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Harry’s hands cupping Hermione’s face, pulling her close in a tight hug that lasted what seemed an eternity until she stopped shaking.</em>
</p>
<p>But now, here, Harry stopped halfway and pulled his hand back, remembering the way Malfoy had jerked away from his touch only two blocks ago.</p>
<p>“Your dad defected though,” Harry reminded Malfoy. “He said that was for you.”</p>
<p>That didn’t matter to Harry. It didn’t redeem much to him. But he wasn’t Lucius Malfoy’s son.</p>
<p>He’d never really been anyone’s son, but it seemed the sort of thing that might matter to someone who had.</p>
<p>Malfoy drew back a step, searching Harry’s face, unmoored by Harry’s words. He made an incomprehensible grasping gesture with his hands, angry and helpless and uncharacteristically inelegant, his face burning with something between frustration and betrayal.</p>
<p>He drew a breath to respond, but just let his hands drop to his sides as he turned and kept walking, fast enough now that Harry had to hurry to keep up with Malfoy’s longer-legged strides.</p>
<p>Harry wasn’t even sure that Malfoy wanted him to keep following. But he was stubborn and he was persistent and he had nowhere else to be.</p>
<p>He would see this through, and he thought there was hardly any way he could make things too much worse.</p>
<p>Malfoy unlocked the front door and held it open for Harry.</p>
<p>When they were inside, Malfoy took off his gloves and shoved them in his pockets, then crossed the narrow sitting room through the open pocket door into the kitchen, unzipping his jacket as he went. “What the <em>fuck</em>, Harry,” he exclaimed, as Harry heard him put down the pie, throw open a cupboard, and rummage around with the sound of clinking glass.</p>
<p>It didn’t seem like the time to point out that this was the second time Malfoy slipped and called him Harry since they’d left the diner, so Harry just hung up his winter things and called back, “What the fuck <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>Malfoy re-emerged with two glasses that were almost like wine glasses, but with shorter stems. He set them on one of the side tables long enough to shrug off his coat, his scarf, his hat. He then proceeded to pour two glasses of port, one generous, one <em>too</em> generous. Holding the less-full glass out to Harry, he said, “What the fuck was <em>that</em> was what the <em>fuck</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry took the glass, feeling too thrown off-balance to know what else to do. “What I said about your dad?” he asked. “That?”</p>
<p>“Yes, <em>that</em>. What else would I mean?” Malfoy’s eyes flashed sharp as ice at Harry. “I’d thought you of <em>anyone</em> would know better than to say <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Harry said, just barely starting to piece together where he’d gone wrong. “Believe me, I’m about the last person on the planet who would sign up for your father’s fan club. But I thought—I thought you’d want to know that at least he cared about you. Despite everything else. And maybe, I dunno, that might help to hear?”</p>
<p>“It does not,” Malfoy informed him. “Let’s not throw the man a parade, shall we, for deciding at the last possible moment that might like his only child just enough to finally draw a line somewhere way off the edge of human decency, after he’d let so many other things slip by as perfectly fine. Acceptable prices to pay, acceptable lives to end, acceptable pain to cause others. And you don’t even <em>spare</em> your son; you don’t give a <em>fucking sixteen-year-old</em> the Dark Mark and<em> call that sparing him</em>. You’re <em>proud</em> to have him there at your side every step of the way. You just didn’t want him to <em>die</em>. If I’m supposed to feel better that my parents managed to clear the very low bar of ‘wanting their son not dead’…”</p>
<p>“Oh, fucking <em>hell</em>,” Harry muttered in response. He set down the glass of port on the nearest bookshelf and walked over to Malfoy. “Can I tell you something?” he asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy hesitated. “Yes,” he decided.</p>
<p>“And you won’t say anything mean.”</p>
<p>“No promises.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed. “When we were at school, I thought your dad was a right bastard. But I was also sort of jealous, you know? I hated the way he would sweep in and act like you were the prince of the world just because you were <em>his</em> son. You were a pain in the arse and a wanker and never really seemed like that much to be <em>proud</em> of to me, but there <em>he</em> was, acting like you were something <em>special</em>. And I figured he must really think the world of you, because you sure weren’t great enough to have <em>earned</em> all that.” Harry smiled a little in apology. “And then, that day, at Hogwarts, when they had pushed everything else aside to find you… Dunno, I reckon I just always felt like maybe you were the worst and your parents were the same kind of worst, but it never seemed fair that even lousy <em>Draco Malfoy</em> had parents there to love him like that.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Jesus.” Malfoy was looking at Harry with his brow furrowed and a frown at the corners of his mouth, his head cocked a little to one side. He had never quite looked at Harry this way before, so for a moment Harry mistook it for confusion. Then he realized it was pity, real pity, genuine and free of condescension. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Harry, it isn’t worth all that much. You’re not missing out.” He sank down to sit on the edge of the couch. Harry, unsure if he was supposed to sit beside him, decided to go back to the chair across from Malfoy. “Sure, they loved me. Love me. Whichever. But that isn’t enough to point to and say, ‘Yes, that rebalances the scales, when you weigh it against everything they agreed to have done to you. Yes, no matter how long and unconscionable that list, no matter the even longer and even worse list of things they raised you to believe. Yes, all of that is washed clean and justified by the fact that the feeling that drove them to do those things could be called <em>love</em>.’”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t quite know what to say to that.</p>
<p>He could have said, <em>You’re right, I watched that play out with my cousin, and even </em>that<em> nightmare was so much less so than </em>this.</p>
<p>He could have said, <em>But love is worth </em>something<em>. Just maybe not </em>that<em> kind of love</em>.</p>
<p>“I’m merely suggesting,” Malfoy said, a note of cold brokenhearted amusement in his voice, “that maybe you wouldn’t have enjoyed trading lives with me after all.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” Harry replied. His eyes shone in the same teasing way he’d looked at Malfoy over dinner. “I’d probably be willing to work for Merv and Tony instead of pushing paperwork around for Abernathy, if you’re offering to swap.”</p>
<p>“<em>Hard</em> pass,” Malfoy said. He paused, head tilted slightly as he pursed his lips slightly in thought. “So Abernathy’s Head Auror now? What happened to Robards?”</p>
<p>“Nothing exciting or dramatic, I’m afraid,” Harry replied. “He got pushed over sideways to the head of DMLE Interdepartmental Relations about four and a half years ago and Abernathy was appointed to replace him. It was all politics, of course: People were, er, less than impressed with how ineffective the Auror Department was with Voldemort, seeing as how the whole purpose of Aurors is to stop dark wizards and all. And since that was under Robards’ leadership…” Harry shrugged. “So the Ministry was having trouble making the department seem like something people could trust to be effective at protecting them and vanquishing evil, blah, blah, et cetera.” Harry winced after saying that, not having meant to sound <em>that</em> cynical about the whole thing. “Anyhow. They decided it would be a smart move to revamp the department’s image by replacing Robards with Abernathy.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Malfoy agreed drily. “Put in one of Moody’s protégés, seeing how <em>he</em> was one of the only Aurors to come out of the war a hero.”</p>
<p>“Something like that, yeah.”</p>
<p>“Tell me, did Abernathy inherit his role model’s ends-justify-the-means approach to police work? That whole Gene Hunt, Wild West, ethics-are-secondary-to-results mindset?”</p>
<p>“Now, wait, no, that’s not—”</p>
<p>“What? Not true?” Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Come on, Potter. We both know the man’s record. He was the maverick hero Auror of the ‘70s, didn’t play by the rules, didn’t follow the book, all those things people said like praise in the obituaries, which mostly meant that he spent his career never having to change from the sort of person who didn’t see a problem with roughing a perp up for information, because he was the good guy and they were the bad guy.”</p>
<p>Harry glared at Malfoy. “You didn’t know him. You just knew the things people hear about who he <em>used</em> to be, and a Death Eater <em>pretending</em> to be him.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes. The person who did a good enough job pretending, it wasn’t a dead giveaway that the <em>real</em> Moody would <em>never</em> have Transfigured a child to knock him around and shove him down his friend’s pants.”</p>
<p>Closing his eyes, Harry pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “All right. Fine. I’m not going to argue with you over Moody’s legacy.”</p>
<p>“Because I’m right.”</p>
<p>“Because you’re impossible.”</p>
<p>“I swear to God, Potter, if you’re about to give me some ‘shades of gray’ line—”</p>
<p>“Are there <em>not</em> shades of gray here?”</p>
<p>“There are, <em>yes</em>, but I don’t need to be reminded in defense of someone I have no reason to start liking <em>now</em>. He’s very dead and he never liked me; he’s not going to mind me keeping my grudges.” Malfoy leaned forward to rest an elbow on one knee, propping his chin on the back of his hand. He blinked up at Harry. “You still haven’t clarified how far the apple falls from the tree with Abernathy.”</p>
<p>“Far enough. It’s not like working in <em>The Sweeney</em>, but it’s… I dunno, it’s fine.” Harry shrugged. “There are a lot of policies and official paperwork in place now. I should know; I get to pretend to file enough of it.”</p>
<p>“Oh! That reminds me.” Malfoy leaned back into the couch with a sly deliberate smile. “You were going to tell me why you’re such a shit Auror.”</p>
<p>“I don’t remember promising to tell you any such thing.”</p>
<p>Malfoy arched an eyebrow. “After everything <em>I</em> just confided? You <em>owe</em> me dirt on you, Potter. Fair’s fair.”</p>
<p>Harry laughed. “All right, when you put it that way.” He took off his glasses to rub a hand over his eyes. “<em>Argh</em>, okay, let’s open this can of worms: Why am I shit Auror? Well, it’s not that I’m no good at the magic side of things. I’m <em>great</em> at all the defense spells, all the charms and counter-hexes, all of that.”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, no need to brag. We all remember how you were in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Malfoy said, reaching over to take a sip of his port and regarding Harry nearly coyly. “We all know that by fourteen, you could have taught that class better than almost any teacher we actually had. So what was the problem then?”</p>
<p>“Field work,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Malfoy put his glass down and looked serious. “<em>Oh</em>.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. <em>Oh</em>.” Harry’s face was grim. “You remember what a raid is like.”</p>
<p>“Not from the same side as you experienced them, but yes.”</p>
<p>“That’s what I mean. Picture the Aurors when they conduct one.”</p>
<p>“Hard,” Malfoy said. “Authoritative and intimidating.” <em>Frightening. Dangerous</em>. “Can’t really picture you barking orders like that. You’re… You’re not that thing. <em>You</em> were always the one who had the chronic problem with authority, for one thing. I have no idea why we all thought you’d be a natural for a career as a wizard G-Man.”</p>
<p><em>You’re stubborn and infuriating, you’re brave and foolhardy, you’re hotheaded and impetuous and stupid. But you’re not </em>that<em>. You’re not cut out for </em>that.</p>
<p>Harry grinned ruefully. “Don’t know why in the world it took me so long to realize all that, and it took you all of thirty seconds.”</p>
<p>“Because I paid more attention to who you were than <em>you</em> did,” Malfoy told him. It was more than he’d meant to admit. He entwined his fingers and studied them in his lap, hoping hard that he wasn’t blushing.</p>
<p>“Probably,” Harry agreed, with a casual shrug. “Figure everyone else was just willing to believe that I was a hero who was supposed to keep hero-ing for the rest of my life, instead of—I dunno, a teenager who clearly didn’t know <em>what</em> I was.”</p>
<p>Malfoy waved a dismissal with a lazy turn of the wrist. “You’re the quintessential Gryffindor, Potter. That doesn’t make you cop material. And just because they made you start rehearsing to be a war hero from age eleven doesn’t make that a job for life if you aren’t interested.”</p>
<p>Harry grimaced. “The Auror Department doesn’t quite want to let go of the prestige of having that war hero on staff, whoever he’s supposed to be. Who he actually <em>is</em>, it turns out, is a sad sorry bloke reduced to a paperwork desk job that nobody even checks up on. So he does <em>far</em> less work than he’d care to admit, enabled by the fact that he shares an office with Terry Boot, who might care even <em>less</em> about productivity than he does.”</p>
<p>“Terry Boot?” Malfoy repeated, sitting up straight. “You share an office with <em>Terry Boot</em>?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. They’re not a proper Auror though. The Aurors offered them a desk job in the department, but haven’t authorized them to get trained and issued a badge or anything.”</p>
<p>Malfoy had an odd look on his face, thoughtful and intent. “When did he start?”</p>
<p>“They,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Malfoy blinked, raising his eyebrows slightly at that, without seeming all that surprised. “All right, good to know. When did they start, then?”</p>
<p>“Oh. Er, we’ve been sharing an office for about six months, and I think they were hired about eight months before that, but I don’t know where they were assigned then, so… A little over a year in total, I think. Why?”</p>
<p>Shaking his head, Malfoy took in that news and was silent for a minute, scratching at his lower lip with a focused intensity as he worked through this new information. “That might explain—That’s <em>interesting</em>. Huh.”</p>
<p>“Why’s it interesting?”</p>
<p>“<em>Well</em>. What would they have wanted from them?”</p>
<p>“Who knows. I think they want to keep an eye on someone who was a spy. And the fact that they had the whole Knockturn Alley thing, the whole thing about coming from people who were rooting for Voldemort. Dunno why that’d have the Aurors grab them up all of a sudden, all these years later, though…” Harry sighed and ran his fingers over the ridges of his scar absentmindedly. “But they keep Terry on a pretty tight leash. A lot of people they’re not allowed to be in contact with. They made them sign an <em>agreement</em> of some kind, I don’t know.” It occurred to Harry how fucked up that really was. “They’ve also given them a stricter dress code than the usual, which seems—which seems particularly unkind, now that I mention it. No makeup, hair kept brown and reasonably short. Slacks and button-up shirts and ties under their robes.”</p>
<p>“Christ. On <em>Terry</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded. He felt a pang of anger at the whole thing, now that he was finally really thinking about it. “Yeah. And you know what they were like, even back in school.”</p>
<p>“Manic Panic and Doc Martens and black eyeliner crayoned over whatever was left over from the day before,” Malfoy remembered. “Claimed to ‘forget’ his—<em>their</em> house tie four of five days of the school week.” He paused. “So they’re not allowed to talk to who? Their own family? The denizens of Knockturn Alley? Or just other Death Eaters?”</p>
<p>“The latter mostly. I don’t particularly think it’s a hardship for them.”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy sighed. “Probably not. Terry probably liked me more than the rest and I can’t honestly say they were any fan of mine: ‘Oi, Malfoy, you fink you’re be’er’n me, but you ain’t nuffink.’”</p>
<p>Harry grinned. “Wow. You really <em>have</em> been gone a long time. Otherwise you’d remember their accent is <em>much</em> thicker than that.”</p>
<p>“God, if they were a film character, they’d have to be subtitled for American audiences, wouldn’t they?” Malfoy shook his head in wonder. “I never really thought I’d almost <em>miss</em> that son of a bitch.”</p>
<p>Harry found himself grinning at that, at the sheer Americanness that had seeped into the way that Malfoy tossed out the phrase <em>son of a bitch</em> in big round easy sounds. Each brass syllable was at odds with his moneyed drawl; the Malfoys had spoken in that particular aristocratic way that suggested that certain pronunciations of theirs were old and pedigreed enough to deserve their own peerage.</p>
<p>“I’ll be sure to pass that along to them,” Harry said. “They’ll be flattered to hear that they’re missed. And also that they’re a son of a bitch.”</p>
<p>“Aw, look at you, being the go-between for illicit Death Eater contact. It’s nice to see you still have such a casual relationship with the rules.”</p>
<p>Harry instinctively opened his mouth to object, but Malfoy held up a hand to stop him.</p>
<p>“Oh, come on, Potter,” Malfoy told him. “I’m not blind. I spent enough years watching you to know that you were <em>good</em>. That doesn’t mean <em>obedient</em>.”</p>
<p>“You spent what now,” Harry came back, thrown off guard.</p>
<p>Malfoy paused for only the shortest moment before brushing that away with a flit of his fingertips. “I’d like to see this paperwork now, if you would be so kind.”</p>
<p>“<em>Now?</em> I mean… All right. I guess.” Harry stood to retrieve it from inside his coat. “Are you saying that you’re actually going to—?”</p>
<p>“God no. I said I’d like to <em>see</em> it. I’m not making any promises beyond that.” He took the envelope that Harry held out to him and held it on his palms like he was testing its weight. “Wow. Did they feel compelled to write out every single item in my family’s possession, down to the demitasse spoons from my grandmother’s silver?”</p>
<p>“You say that like there’s much left to catalog.”</p>
<p>Malfoy scowled. “<em>You</em> don’t get to be facetious about this. You haven’t earned that yet.”</p>
<p>Harry quieted the part of him that wanted to get defensive at that rebuking tone of voice being directed at him, by Draco Malfoy no less. “You’re right,” he made himself say instead. “Sorry.”</p>
<p>Malfoy swept one finger under the flap of the envelope to untuck it and slid the thick sheaf of papers out. “Christ,” he muttered, his attention diverted entirely to the pages and pages unfolding in his hands. He drew his feet up to the couch, settling in to begin reading.</p>
<p>“Er, what should I do while you—?”</p>
<p>Malfoy twirled a distracted hand at Harry as if to say, <em>Whatever you wish. </em>“I’m agreeing to actually read this. The least you can do is occupy yourself without needing me to babysit you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at beginning of chapter from "Cocaine and Abel" by Amigo the Devil. Honestly, I could've picked probably any lines from that song and they would've worked for Draco here.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Six</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
<em>‘Cause I’ve broken all your windows</em><br/>
<em>And I’ve rammed through all your doors</em><br/>
<em>And who am I to ask you to lick my sores?</em><br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It only took Harry a couple minutes to get restless trying to sit patiently in the cane-seat chair across from Malfoy. He could feel himself wanting to drum his fingertips, bounce a knee up and down in a nervous rhythm, start biting a thumbnail despite having pretended for a while now to have broken that particular bad habit. At least, he thought, he didn’t have a pen or pencil to accidentally chew on.</p>
<p>So he stood up and wandered to the other end of the room, studied the beach glass in green and blue and cloudy white in a ceramic ashtray on one of the side tables, running a fingertip over the smooth round nubs, letting them click against each other.</p>
<p>There was a neat stack of firewood on the hearth and a box of long fireplace matches on the mantel, so Harry busied himself putting together and lighting a fire with the ease of someone who had done this countless times.</p>
<p>Once he had gotten it going well enough and had poked it a few times, he settled back on his heels where he was still crouched in front of it, and looked over to see Malfoy watching him with the hint of a smile.</p>
<p>“If you give a wizard a fireplace,” Malfoy remarked without derision, then went back to reading.</p>
<p>Harry straightened up and stepped over to glance over the array of books crowded onto Malfoy’s bookcases.</p>
<p>Almost a bookcase and a half was all novels—some famous literature, many of them not, while the other half of the shelves was filled with books on Muggle history, science, film religion; with books on sociology and anthropology; with how-to manuals on computers, cooking, car repair, housekeeping, modern etiquette.</p>
<p>“I should have a pen over there,” Malfoy announced without looking up, holding up a hand with wrist bent, palm upfacing, fingers unfurled, with the clear expectation that Harry would bring it to him.</p>
<p><em>I see you can still be as casually demanding as always</em>, Harry thought but didn’t say.</p>
<p>There was a plastic ballpoint pen tossed on one of the shelves and Harry took it and placed it in Malfoy’s open palm. He took it with a preoccupied <em>hmm</em> sound soft in his throat that might have been meant as an expression of thanks and uncapped it one-handed, rotating it deftly between his fingers to be pointing the right way.</p>
<p>He used to do that with his wand, Harry remembered, spinning it like a waterfall through his slender fingers, smooth and easy.</p>
<p>With narrowed eyes, Malfoy drew a line through something on the first page and wrote his own note above it.</p>
<p>Harry wandered back to poke the fire, then look at the books again. He recognized the author’s name on the spine of a dogeared paperback and slid it out.</p>
<p>Malfoy looked up. “Oh, hell, Potter, I never knew you to voluntarily read a book before, and you’re picking up <em>Notes of a Native Son</em> as a bit of light reading to occupy yourself? Just jumping right into the deep end there, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Harry turned it over in his hands studying the front and back. “At the Orchard House,” he said, “the rooms are named after writers. I’ve got James Baldwin. And I don’t know who he is.”</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded, for once not poking fun at Harry for not knowing something. “Jan used to be an English teacher,” he said. “She gave me that one. Plus about a dozen others.” He tilted his head to one side, regarding Harry thoughtfully. “Take it,” he concluded. “Keep it. I’ve already read it and Jan told me that books are for sharing, so…” He trailed off and shrugged. “But if you’re looking for something to casually pick up while I’m reading through all this, pick one of the cheap detective novels or something.”</p>
<p>Harry pulled something called <em>A Queer Kind of Death</em> off the shelf, for its lurid cover featuring a well-dressed skeleton over a bruise-purple background. The skeleton had a thick head of well-styled dark hair and a rose held between his teeth.</p>
<p>Malfoy arched an eyebrow slightly, then went back to his own reading with a resigned sigh. “Camp,” he was all he said.</p>
<p>Harry settled onto the rug in front of the fire with his book and glass of port.</p>
<p>It became cozy, almost like the rare quiet nights he missed in the Gryffindor Common Room, working on his studies, or trying to, while enjoying the amiable peace of the people around him, comfortable and unthreatening. He could still conjure up in his memory the sounds of pages turning and the scratching of quills, the little noises of companionship that were a reassurance that he was unalone, so much the opposite of the place he’d come from, where he had learned so very early to be hypervigilant about every small sound. There, he had learned to hear every small whinge of the floorboard, every approaching creak of movement, the click of door unlocking or locking, as an alarm, a warning, as something that demanded stillness, held breath, frozen attention.</p>
<p>Harry read and sipped at the glass of port, turning every so often to watch the fire, the leap of flames and the showers of sparks that would dance upward from the wood.</p>
<p>After a while, he finally looked back over at Malfoy.</p>
<p>Malfoy was mostly reclined on the couch, leaned back to half-sitting against one arm. The orange flicker of the fire glowed off his cheeks, his hands, the shine of his eyes and their long pale lashes, the small silvery glint of the piercing in his left brow. He had tugged the elastic band out of his hair, and it had fallen around his shoulders in messy waves, creased in odd places from having been pulled back for hours. The only other light in the room was a small reading lamp behind him, which lit up the loose strands in a halo so pale platinum that it seemed almost white.</p>
<p>His feet were on the cushions with his legs bent, so he could rest the paperwork on his thighs as he read it. One hand held the pen poised over the pages, while the other loosely cupped the bowl of his port glass, its base rested on top of his stomach. He would switch between making notes, drinking from his glass, and shuffling the sheets of parchment around, all with a fluid neatness that still transfixed Harry. Draco Malfoy’s movements had always seemed so graceful, down to the smallest gestures (or perhaps even especially there). Harry watched the natural delicacy of the way his fingers moved like a dance, sure and smooth and punctuated by small flourishes that seemed now an ingrained part of his being.</p>
<p>When Harry used to watch Malfoy in school—<em>Did I? I didn’t, did I? Not as much as all </em>that<em>, of course, no</em>—Malfoy had carried a sense of artifice in his bearing. An understanding clicked into place inside Harry: the Draco Malfoy from school had been self-conscious of those filigreed physical cues, had been trying to hold himself how others did, how his father did, stiffly and imperiously trying to quell the fact that his body language was meant to be written in round flowing cursive.</p>
<p>Harry watched the way he moved now, with all its glissando and grace notes, and envied Malfoy for it.</p>
<p>Or—No. Not envy. This was the same feeling that had burned in his cheeks watching Malfoy lean close to Merv to murmur something in his ear. And so<em> envy</em> wasn’t quite the right name for the feeling that rose inside him now and bloomed up to somewhere above his breastbone, drawing a sharp involuntary breath to the back of his throat when he recognized it for what it was.</p>
<p>Malfoy looked up. “Yes?” he asked, one eyebrow rising. “I’m sorry, is this <em>boring</em> you?”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head, embarrassed but unwilling to explain why.</p>
<p>“I thought you were yawning.”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Malfoy appraised Harry for a moment and then favored him with an indifferent shrug as he turned back to the papers in his lap.</p>
<p>“When did you know you were gay?” Harry asked suddenly. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out; his mouth hadn’t asked his brain permission first.</p>
<p>It did nothing to alleviate the embarrassment still buzzing inside him.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s head snapped up from the paragraph he was reading. He gave Harry a sharp look that was half-annoyance and half-confusion and part something else. <em>Caution</em>. Harry realized it was caution. “Why do you ask?” he replied with careful indifference.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I just—I just wondered how you <em>know</em>. And the only other person who’s come out to me is my cousin, so—”</p>
<p>“I didn’t <em>come out</em> to you,” Malfoy interrupted coolly. “I merely mentioned something that was common knowledge to everyone <em>else</em> except you.”</p>
<p>He knew that was a lie. Letting Harry in on that part of himself, no matter how old the news felt now, or how obvious, was still very much a coming out. It was still laying bare a part of himself that felt vital and dangerous and easy to bruise.</p>
<p>It had been frightening, as much as he had tried to sound blasé in the diner.</p>
<p>But even so, when he thought of <em>coming out</em>, his memory still went to the first time he ever told another person: Pansy Parkinson, beginning of fifth year.</p>
<p>She had taken it well, he’d thought. Well enough. And more importantly, she had agreed with him on what seemed like the obvious correct conclusion: It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter and of course it should be kept a secret. Of course he should still plan to marry and continue the Malfoy bloodline. Of course she understood entirely what his obligations were. <em>And everyone has things they keep secret, Draco; everyone has things they want and don’t get to have. That’s just how life is. You just have to make the best of it.</em></p>
<p>It seemed like the obvious ideal solution at the time: Wait until they were out of school and the Dark Lord risen and their place in the wizarding world secured, then marry Pansy, who was a Pureblood, who could navigate high society, and who would keep his secrets. She would get nearly everything she wanted, and he would have done nearly everything he was required to.</p>
<p>His mother had commented once that she did wish that Pansy were prettier and just a <em>little</em> slimmer, especially around the ankles, but was otherwise a remarkably suitable choice for Draco.</p>
<p>His mother had <em>also</em> commented once—years and years earlier, when Draco was a child—that she’d had a cousin on her side that had brought disgrace to his parents when he was a student, for telling them that he refused to marry, that he had no intention whatsoever in carrying on the Black family name, and then dating some <em>boy</em>—openly and shamelessly, as though to taunt everyone, as though to beg for scandal.</p>
<p><em>Obligation</em>, she had said, <em>is everything. It’s as though he didn’t realize the </em>responsibility<em> we carry.</em></p>
<p>Harry was giving Malfoy a very doubtful look, eyebrows raised. “Everyone but me <em>knew</em>? Back in <em>school</em>?”</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed. “All right, no. Not then. Everyone <em>here</em> knows, however, and that’s all that really matters now.” A small smile played across his face, shining mostly in those gray eyes. “Merv was astounded that I ever managed to be closeted,” he said. “If I recall, his exact words were, ‘You’re really telling me that everyone couldn’t tell instantly from a hundred paces? Were you a completely different person when you were seventeen, or does nobody in England have even the smallest hint of gaydar?’”</p>
<p>Harry could picture Merv saying exactly those words to Malfoy with grinning incredulity, and Harry wanted to laugh at the image, but wasn’t quite sure it was a joke he was allowed in on. “I suppose,” he said instead, “that I assumed you were just very posh.”</p>
<p>Malfoy let out a surprised, delighted <em>ha</em> at that. “Well, my teenage self would have counted that as a victory, whatever good that would have done him.” He rolled his eyes at the memory of his former self, a self-deprecating smirk at one corner of his lips. “His priorities were ill-advised at best, however, and—Well, we’ve talked about what they were at worst.”</p>
<p>Harry tossed the paperback aside and scrambled awkwardly to a cross-legged sitting position. “How can… I mean. Can someone really <em>tell</em> if a person’s not—y’know. If they’re not straight? <em>How</em>?”</p>
<p>(<em>What about </em>me<em>? How can you tell for </em>sure<em> about yourself? And people can’t suspect—they can’t </em>tell<em>, can they, something about me that even </em>I’m<em> not sure of yet?</em>)</p>
<p>Malfoy craned his head to one side, looking at Harry as though he couldn’t tell whether he was meant to be amused or puzzled. He tucked the ballpoint pen behind one ear and unbent his legs, casually crossing them at the ankle. The change in posture should have seemed like he was relaxing further, yet it was clear that this was him setting aside what he was doing to pay active attention to Harry’s question.</p>
<p>“<em>Well</em>,” Malfoy said thoughtfully, taking a long sip of port. “Either you’re asking how one was supposed to be able to tell that <em>I</em> was, in which case, I really must assume you’ve led an even more sheltered life than I thought. Or”—he took another drink from his glass, his eyes never leaving Harry’s face—“you’re not asking about <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry opened and closed his mouth twice, that old flustered, defensive look flashing in his eyes, the one that used to let Malfoy know when he’d finally found the right angle to get under Harry’s skin. “No,” he shot back, “no, I don’t know <em>what</em> I—what I was asking. I’d just been watching you—” He stopped and furrowed his brow. “No. <em>That’s</em> not what I meant.”</p>
<p>“What’s not what you meant?” Malfoy’s voice was cool. Detached. Careful.</p>
<p>Harry glared at him. He felt somehow that it was Malfoy’s fault that this conversation wasn’t going where he’d planned for it to.</p>
<p>He didn’t know where he’d planned it to go.</p>
<p>He hadn’t thought it though before opening his mouth.</p>
<p>“You never answered my original question,” he informed Malfoy. The reproach in his voice seemed ready to veer to prickles and petulance if he wasn’t careful.</p>
<p>“When did I know I was gay?”</p>
<p>“Yes. That one.”</p>
<p><em>And how? How did you know? How could you be </em>sure<em>, without having had someone with which to try it out? How do you know it’s not just theoretical? Or confusion? Or maybe you’re just wrong about yourself, because you’ve been wrong about yourself before, because you’ve been wrong before about what you thought you wanted, when you thought you wanted to marry as soon as possible. So who’s to say you’re not just stupid and wrong yet again and you shouldn’t have come out to Dudley two days ago, or to Gin five years ago, back when it didn’t matter anyway, when you had nothing to point at and say, yes, </em>this<em> is how I know what I feel now</em>—</p>
<p>“When did you know you were straight?” Malfoy countered then, the question a gauntlet tossed indolently down to Harry.</p>
<p>“That’s different,” Harry shot back.</p>
<p>“<em>Is</em> it?”</p>
<p>“Yes!”</p>
<p>“Well, <em>I</em> wouldn’t know, of course.” Malfoy lifted his glass from the rounded shelf of his belly and held it up, contemplating the half-empty ruby-dark liquid inside as he swirled it in a slow circle. “You would have to explain it to me.” His eyes flicked from the port to Harry’s face, inviting him—no, challenging him—to answer something so clearly unanswerable.</p>
<p>“Well. Even when I was I-don’t-know-how-young—ten maybe?—I dreamed already that someday I’d meet someone and we’d start a family together.” That was true. He tried to believe it didn’t become a lie when used to answer Malfoy’s question.</p>
<p>“<em>And</em>? So did I.”</p>
<p>Harry managed to catch himself before he could scoff back, <em>No, you didn’t</em>.</p>
<p>Instead, he said, “But <em>I </em>actually <em>did</em> it.” Which wasn’t any better.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes, and then you regretted it terribly and bollocksed it up,” he said. “Good for you though, you got married and had those kids you were meant to. You win, yet again.”</p>
<p>“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”</p>
<p>“Harry Potter, model citizen, blessed to always want exactly the things that a good person ought to want.” He ran his lower lip under his teeth, searching Harry for a place to stick something sharp where it might actually take. “<em>Three</em> kids, though. Tell me you weren’t one of those couples that has a baby to save a marriage.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes went round at that.</p>
<p>Malfoy had expected him to snap back and flare up in anger—<em>Why do I want that from him?</em>—but Harry looked stunned and <em>caught</em>, like he’d just been stripped bare and been shown for the first time something he’d never seen about himself before.</p>
<p>“Oh, Jesus,” Malfoy murmured, swinging his feet off the couch to sit forward, quietly, as if Harry was a small skittish creature he needed not to frighten. “You did, didn’t you? But you never <em>thought</em>—You didn’t realize until just <em>now</em>?”</p>
<p>“I never—We never saw it that way. Not that we could put words to, or say aloud. I don’t think we were ready to start seeing a… a lot of things. I don’t think we were ready to realize that things were getting—<em>strained</em>, when we agreed to have…”</p>
<p>“But then you were divorced a year later, so you must have had <em>that</em> epiphany not long after your last-ditch Hail Mary baby.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Harry was still for a moment, and then stood up. He picked his glass off the carpet, set it on the mantelpiece, and took the poker to the fire. He had a swallow of port, put the glass back, contemplated adding another log to the ebbing blaze. He was lost; he needed something to do with his hands; he needed to not correct Malfoy’s misunderstanding there; he knew he ought to stop himself before he said something stupid and naked like: “Oh. No. Not Lily. We didn’t <em>mean</em> to have… We were in no place for that. I’d meant Albus.”</p>
<p>“Christ, Harry.” The two words came out soft and sorry.</p>
<p>Harry stared into the fireplace. “I adore them, all of them. Don’t think I don’t. Don’t think I regret having a single one of them. I would never.” He might, sometimes, in fleeting moments, after which he’d hate himself for hours. “I’d die for them, you know.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Malfoy said. “You could do with finding a new litmus test for how you care about people.” If he were kind, he would stand up and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. If he were good, he’d touch Harry’s face in gentle reassurance. Malfoy stayed seated. “I didn’t think you <em>did</em> resent your children. That wasn’t what I meant.”</p>
<p>He had seen Harry’s face in the diner when he pulled out the photos to show Malfoy.</p>
<p>He had nearly wanted to slap that face for having the gall to wear love so big and open like that.</p>
<p>“Good.” Harry picked up the poker to jab at the fire a couple more times. “I don’t know why I told you that. I’ve never told anyone that, not even myself. Gin and I never would have even thought to say that aloud, even if—even if we both knew.”</p>
<p>“Well, there’s no stakes in telling <em>me</em>.” Malfoy shrugged. “You’ve never cared what I thought of you, so what’s the risk, really? And even if I wanted to, I can’t give you shit from here anymore. I’m <em>here</em>, and you’re <em>there</em>. As far as you’re concerned, I may as well be a priest taking confession for how much <em>I</em> can do with anything you tell me.”</p>
<p>Harry chuckled involuntarily at the incongruous comparison. “The closest <em>you’ve</em> ever been to a priest is those black dress robes you wore to Yule Ball in fourth year.”</p>
<p>Malfoy grimaced. “Dreadful,” he remarked at the memory of that outfit, that whole night, how artificial and miserable he’d felt. “But that’s why you said that to me. Because you know you’re not under any threat anymore, not from a chubby effete barista with no magic, living an ocean away.”</p>
<p>Harry looked at Malfoy, who looked back placidly and matter-of-factly. Still, Harry reflexively started to reply, “You’re not—”</p>
<p>Malfoy silenced him with a raised eyebrow and withering sidelong glance.</p>
<p>“Not <em>very</em>, anyway,” Harry floundered and amended.</p>
<p>“How magnanimous,” Malfoy murmured drily, dripping sarcasm. He settled back, resting one ankle languorously on the other knee. One elbow leaned on the couch arm, its hand still cupping the bowl of his glass with long fingers curled like loose petals, as he draped his other arm along the back cushions.</p>
<p>There was something like a challenge in that change of posture, as though Malfoy wanted to play up how unashamedly he’d grown into owning the lazy filigree and liquid grace of his carriage. And as if to highlight how little he cared about trying to camouflage from Harry’s gaze the lines and shapes of his body now: the filling out of his once hollow-sharp cheeks, the hint of new softness over his chest, the gentle curve of his stomach that settled comfortably around his waist.</p>
<p>Malfoy tilted his head to one side to meet Harry’s eyes with an expression that was frank and almost knowing, which Harry did not care for in the least.</p>
<p>“Excuse me for trying to be polite,” Harry said. He felt that awful warm-cheeks-and-flutter-in-his-chest sensation again. “I know it’s not our <em>usual</em> thing, so maybe it confused you.”</p>
<p>The trace of a complacent smile curled the edges of his lips, and he drummed his fingers in a dismissive roll over the couch cushion where they were splayed. “Do me a favor, Potter,” he said. “Don’t take it upon yourself to absolve me of the qualities I’ve learned to like about myself, especially not out of some kind of disingenuous civility.” He leaned forward to give Harry a shining conspiratorial look that felt like a challenge. “If we absolutely <em>must</em> lie about each other out of false niceness—”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t trying to lie,” Harry lied.</p>
<p>“—then tell me I’m not petty and vicious. Tell me I’m not conceited, that I’m not unbearably indifferent, willfully hard to love—”</p>
<p>“‘Insufferable and high-maintenance?’” Harry quoted, his green eyes sharp at understanding what he heard the echoes of in Malfoy’s voice. He knew how to recite <em>that</em> litany; he’d had his personal rendition playing on loop in his own head these past few months: “Harry, you’re just stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. Unreliable. Lousy temper, too quick to get mad and too quick to expect the other person to be over it. Restless.”</p>
<p>“Directionless,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>“Kind of an arsehole when I’ve a mind to be.” Harry could still hear the frustrated resignation in Ginny’s voice when she’d said that.</p>
<p>Malfoy laughed hollowly. “Oh, <em>that’s</em> nothing.” He swept one hand through the air as if blocking out a front-page headline: “A catty impossible queen bitch who’s let himself go and thinks he can coast by on a waning English accent and empty promises of having more to offer than just working a dead-end job in a worn-out diner.”</p>
<p>Harry blinked at Malfoy, his eyes round. “I… <em>Merlin</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy waved that away as if Harry’s concern was unneeded, but then drank the rest of his port in two swallows, set the glass down, and said, “Potter. Here’s the thing. You’re <em>you</em>, the Gryffindor poster child and everyone’s Boy Scout in shining armor. Of course <em>you</em> were going to end up with the decent upstanding ex, who when ending things messily, still says halfway tactful things like you’re <em>kind of</em> an asshole <em>sometimes</em>. I, on the other hand, am <em>me</em>, and thereby deserve exactly the bastard ex I got.” Malfoy rolled his shoulders in a drawn-out shrug as if to say, <em>Whatever, it’s not important</em>. “So there you have it, everything played out as it ought. And so as I already assured you, you’ve no reason to fear judgment from this <em>particular</em> effete chubby barista an ocean away. Not that you ever really did anyway.” Stifling a yawn against the back of one hand, he stretched, slow and feline, and Harry’s eyes were drawn down the sweeping curve of his torso. Harry snatched his gaze away as Malfoy stood up. “Pie,” Malfoy said. “We still have pie, and this whole <em>everything</em> has given me a deep and acute need for pie.”</p>
<p>He was already halfway through the kitchen door as he asked, “Do you want pie?”</p>
<p>“Oh, er, no thanks, I’m good.”</p>
<p>“Trick question,” Malfoy informed him from somewhere in the little kitchen. “Tony would be heartbroken if you didn’t have yours. He’d probably never forgive me for depriving you of his baking.”</p>
<p>Harry could hear the faint rattle and scrape of plates being pulled down from a cupboard.</p>
<p>“It’s more than an ocean away,” Harry said, standing up and plucking his glass off the mantel. Crossing over to the mostly-open pocket door to the kitchen, he elaborated, “You’re a whole <em>reality</em> away from the one I’m stuck with, and frankly, I kind of envy yours right now.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was in the middle of transferring the first of the two large slices onto a plate and glanced over his shoulder at Harry.</p>
<p>The kitchen was as tight a space as Harry had suspected, with a short laminate counter on the back wall beside a deep old farmhouse sink filled with dishes. One side wall housed an old brown-green refrigerator, while the other had another bookcase serving as a pantry. In the middle, against the front wall, there was a very small table with two chairs. There was barely enough room around all that for two people to navigate on the little patch of open floor.</p>
<p>“Why?” Malfoy asked, as he slid the second slice of pie onto its plate.</p>
<p>Harry gathered the loose mail from the small table into a stack and set it on the counter to make space for pie. “Why what? Why do I envy you this reality?”</p>
<p>“No. Not that part. Why are you stuck with <em>yours</em>?” Malfoy picked up the two plates and hesitated, looking in annoyance at the sink of unwashed dishes. “I <em>had</em> rather hoped you’d avoid ever having to know that it’s been a day or two since I’ve done the washing up.”</p>
<p>“Let me do it,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“One: If you were a guest in my house, it would be unseemly for me as your host to allow you to <em>clean</em> anything. And two: You <em>aren’t</em> a guest in my house. You’re an intruder that I’m being unreasonably accommodating towards.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy, you prat, I’m a bloody <em>wizard</em> with a bloody <em>wand</em>. I can have the washing up done in a snap, no problem.”</p>
<p>“Right, of course. Rub it in, why don’t you.” Malfoy heaved a theatrically put-upon sigh as he set the two plates on the table. “All right, carry on then.”</p>
<p>A few minutes later, the clean dishes were stacked beside the sink and Malfoy had poured two tall glasses of milk to go with the pie.</p>
<p>Sitting down across from each other in Malfoy’s small old kitchen felt suddenly more familiar and intimate than the diner booth had.</p>
<p>It felt dangerous.</p>
<p>But not in the usual ways Harry was used to things being dangerous to him.</p>
<p>“From the sound of things,” Malfoy pontificated, gesturing towards Harry with the tines of his fork as though embarking on a speech, “you’re terrible at a job that you hate, and other than your children, I’m not entirely sure what’s good in your life right now. By my—apparently outdated—understanding of how things are supposed to work, everyone is supposed to love you and everything is supposed to come out in your favor. You were supposed to show up and make me feel like my life’s worth shit compared to yours. That’s your role; it always has been. And yet you’re failing to play it half as well as you used to. So why are you <em>stuck</em> in something that defies the very pattern of your life?”</p>
<p>Harry gave Malfoy that old familiar impatient eyeroll and shake of the head, the one he used when Malfoy was being merely <em>annoying</em> instead of <em>infuriating</em>. “Sorry to let you down. If you want, I’ll go outside and come back in, and we can take it from the top. I’ll tell you all about my fabulous married life and my impressive career and brag about my hundred other blinding successes that I’m sure I can make up as I go along.”</p>
<p>“Forget it, that wouldn’t play, not even in community theatre. Not when you deliver your lines with <em>that</em> bitter undertone.”</p>
<p>“Right, of course. When I make up my great deeds and heroic acts, I’m supposed to use a booming jovial voice and smile with far too many teeth.”</p>
<p>Malfoy smirked. “The Official Gilderoy Lockhart Method?”</p>
<p>“Precisely.”</p>
<p>“Patent pending.” Malfoy took another bite of pie.</p>
<p>Harry followed suit, then looked puzzled. “This custard is… <em>gritty</em>?”</p>
<p>“It’s got cornmeal in it,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>Harry made a half-shrugging, head-shaking gesture that asked, <em>Why?</em></p>
<p>Malfoy shrugged back. “Americans like corn,” he said, and then to clarify, “Maize.” He sliced off another bite with the side of his fork and mused, “Nobody says ‘maize’ here, not unless it’s in the context of talking about, oh, the First Thanksgiving and crops grown in the early Plymouth Rock Puritans-and-genocide early settler days of American history.”</p>
<p>Harry stared at Malfoy with a faintly bemused look, as if he were an unidentifiable specimen in a jar. <em>Who </em>are<em> you?</em> he wanted to ask. <em>How are you exactly the same person I hated for years like nothing’s changed at all, and also suddenly someone I’ve never met?</em></p>
<p>And it seemed so unfair—<em>so bloody unfair</em>—that this familiar stranger should be so contented, living warm and cozy and satisfied as a sleek well-fed housecat. With a fire in the hearth and shelves of books, and little pretty things collected, and a kitchen with yellow flowers on the wallpaper and charming mismatched dessert plates with too many years of little fork scratches scuffing their faces to have been bought new.</p>
<p>Of all the people to demonstrate to Harry what a corner of small reclaimed happiness could look like, it should not get to be Draco Malfoy.</p>
<p>Neville, maybe. Neville deserved to be that person.</p>
<p>Neville, who Harry avoided visiting at Hogwarts, because it made him feel itchy with jealousy, followed then by self-loathing for the way that jealousy seeped into the happiness he wanted to feel for one of the people he loved most fiercely in the world.</p>
<p>Neville, for whom Harry could pretend <em>those</em> were the reasons he hadn’t been back to Hogwarts.</p>
<p>“Well,” Harry heard himself say, his voice sounding tetchy and spiteful even to his own ears, “we don’t <em>all</em> get to disappear to a scenic seaside town to make cappuccinos and eat <em>lobstah chowdah</em> instead of sticking around to deal with the world we were given.”</p>
<p>Something sharp as ice glinted in Draco’s eyes for a moment at that. He calmly set down his fork and folded his hands under his chin, fingers enlacing. “Oh?” He regarded Harry with cold serenity. “<em>Are</em> you dealing with it then? I was under the impression you were just miserably <em>going along</em> with it.”</p>
<p>Harry, all fire to Malfoy’s ice, snapped back, “Well, that’s better than running off like a coward and just—”</p>
<p>“No. It isn’t. It’s no braver to stay home, not when <em>home</em> made you their hero and begged you to stay.” Malfoy met Harry’s glare. “It was the only world I’d ever known, smaller and more shut-in than even yours ever was, and every corner of it hated me now. For being one of <em>them</em>, for not being <em>enough</em> one of <em>us</em>. Yes, I suppose it would have been <em>the right thing to do</em>”—he slid a sneer into those words—“for me to stay there and live out the last several years in penance, playing every part I’m asked to for everyone else’s grief and catharsis, and not being able to breathe for never learning who I actually am.”</p>
<p>“I know who I am,” Harry said. A pause. “Sometimes.”</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded. “<em>When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw</em>,” he recited in understanding. “But that makes it worse, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t say anything, but his agreement was written large in his wide eyes. He couldn’t remember having felt so <em>seen</em> by someone who felt what he felt in the same dire marrow-deep way, as much as Malfoy was the dark side of the mirror, the tarnished tails flipped from his gleaming heads.</p>
<p>“You’re not Harry Potter,” Malfoy told him, pronouncing it like a title, like a proper noun that was not a person’s name, “just as I’m not Draco Malfoy.” He licked his lips, feeling how thin and fragile the space between them had just become. He spread his fingers along the edge of the table, knowing that in another world, one where he’d learned tenderness and courage, he would slide one hand across and clasp it over Harry’s now. He didn't. He just dug his fingernails along the woodgrain ridges and said, “I used to be. You may never have been.”</p>
<p>“Neither of those were real people,” Harry said, his voice the breathless whisper of confession. He had tried so many times not to think that about himself; he knew he couldn’t say it to any of his other friends, not like this. They had loved him and known him and rallied behind him; they had all believed in <em>Harry Potter</em>. “They were just ideas.”</p>
<p>“Made up by people older than us without our say before we were old enough to walk, and then sold to us as our real selves.”</p>
<p>“And told it was an honor.” Harry was quiet for a moment. “As though any child could fulfill what they…”</p>
<p>“Well.” Malfoy’s expression was hard and distant. He didn’t quite meet Harry’s eyes as he said, “Step one, of course: Never let us be children.”</p>
<p>Harry caught his breath. He should say something in argument there, he knew he should, but he couldn’t quite find the proper words that also felt <em>true</em>.</p>
<p>“Hope we won’t figure out what we missed having until we’re too old to have it,” Malfoy murmured. “Of course, then <em>you</em> got the Weasleys as soon as you got to school…”</p>
<p>“They <em>had</em> to put me with my aunt and uncle,” Harry blurted out, as he stumbled grasping into what he knew he was supposed to say. “Because of magic, because my mother was her sister, and so… And so…” He stopped, momentum lost.</p>
<p>The look Malfoy gave him then would have been that condescending <em>don’t-be-an-idiot</em> glance if it didn’t come out so tired and heartsick. He pressed the grain of the tabletop hard into the pads of his fingertips. “Oh, you still believe that was truly the <em>only</em> option allowed them for your care.”</p>
<p>“It was,” Harry said, but his voice was strange. It was an empty airy thing that floated up towards the cusp of a dawning. “It was, and they didn’t <em>know</em>, didn’t realize what that house was <em>like</em>. They thought it was my family, so they’d treat me like it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy made a soft <em>tsk</em> at that, shaking his head. “<em>Potter</em>,” was all he said, with a slight sympathetic raise of his eyebrows.</p>
<p>Harry toyed with his fork and frowned at his slice of pie with its two small bites eaten. “You don’t think that holds any water, do you,” he said.</p>
<p>“If nothing else,” Malfoy agreed carefully, “they had to know by the time you got to school. And still they sent you back. And back. And back.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes flicked up to Malfoy’s face for a moment, a question knit into his brow.</p>
<p>“Of <em>course </em>I did,” Malfoy answered. “The other side always knew exactly where you were. They always kept eyes on you.”</p>
<p>“And so you knew what my home was like?” Harry asked. “<em>You</em> knew, all these years?”</p>
<p>“Yes. Foolish of my parents, really, to tell me. They must have thought they were giving me cautionary bedtime horror stories about how stupid and cruel Muggles were. And I—I believed that <em>had</em> to be true, because how could it <em>not</em> be, a family so utterly <em>awful</em> that even <em>my</em> father thought them too harsh? But I would have hated you so much more if I’d thought you were happy.”</p>
<p>“You hated me plenty, don’t worry,” Harry assured him drily. And then: “Wait—Did you say <em>bedtime stories</em>? How <em>old</em> were you?”</p>
<p>“Christ.” Malfoy put his face in his hands for a long moment. He looked up at the ceiling as though hoping for an escape, and explained, “Don’t you see? It was common knowledge among us the kind of house Harry Potter had been handed over to by Albus  Dumbledore. You can’t—You <em>can’t</em> really believe that he had no idea, can you? You can’t really think he was so unobservant and gullible as all <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>A convoluted montage of furious thought and anger and hurt shifted over Harry’s features like a storm rolling in. He threw his fork down onto his plate and pushed away from the table. “He was doing what was best for me! <em>He was trying to take care of me!</em>”</p>
<p>Harry was on his feet now, and Malfoy slid out of his chair as well in unthinking reaction.</p>
<p>He had learned years ago that Harry Potter angry was something to approach at a careful distance.</p>
<p>He had learned years ago that <em>anyone</em> angry was dangerous to touch.</p>
<p>He had learned you were stupid if you tried; you were bringing the consequences down on yourself for rushing in recklessly.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s instincts took over and ignored all those ingrained lessons.</p>
<p>In two short steps around the little table, he had reached Harry and put both hands firmly on his shoulders. It was between restraint and embrace, driven by a deluge of feeling that Malfoy couldn’t name; it was neither aggression nor affection, but possibly was both together at once.</p>
<p>“<em>No, he wasn’t</em>,” Malfoy told Harry. He felt his fingers gripping hard into Harry. He wanted to shake him when Harry turned his face up to Malfoy’s, defiant and square-jawed and <em>so goddamned close</em>.</p>
<p>Harry pressed his balled fists against Draco’s chest. He knew he should want to push Malfoy away, but didn’t try very hard, just felt his hands shaking against the front of Malfoy’s jumper. “Fuck you. He was.”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>.” Malfoy’s hold on Harry tightened, his hands sliding down to his upper arms, pulling him closer. Harry felt his elbows jab awkwardly against Malfoy’s belly, but Malfoy didn’t seem to care. “No, he wasn’t. He was trying to do what was best for society, for everyone. He cared about the whole wizarding world, not just you. Compromises could be made with <em>you</em> if it might save us <em>all</em> down the line. You weren’t the cause, you were just an important tool in the arsenal. And at the end, sure, it would be nice to let the boy soldier survive to live something like a normal life. But that wasn’t the main goal. You weren’t more important than saving the world.”</p>
<p>Harry opened and closed his mouth a couple of times with breaths that gasped and shuddered, before echoing, “Something <em>like</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy searched Harry’s face. He could feel his own breath coming in high and shallow. “What is it for you? Nightmares? Flashbacks? Fear? Anger? Feeling parts of you are too unknowable for anyone else to understand? But it’s all worth it, right?”</p>
<p>“<em>Don’t</em>,” Harry said, sharp and quiet. He wanted to tell Malfoy to shut up, that he didn’t know Harry well enough to be allowed a question like <em>that</em>; he wanted to push him away, wrench out of his arms, but then—But then something deep buried that had been scratching at the back of his head since Malfoy’s <em>oh-you-still-believe</em> finally broke to the surface and clicked into place. His eyes went round and helpless as a part of the foundation of his self crumbled underfoot. “My letter,” he whispered. “My letter, the address. <em>H. Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little—Little Whinging. Surrey. Cupboard Under the</em>… They knew. They <em>knew</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy’s breath caught. For the look in Harry’s face, all defenses cracked open to something so lost and orphan-vulnerable, like a small bruised thing suddenly left alone in the whole world. For that look alone, Malfoy nearly wished he <em>had</em> killed Dumbledore, for <em>fucking putting that</em> on a letter to a <em>child</em>, for putting Harry in that house, for putting that look on Harry’s face all these years later when the only person present was someone he hated, who’d never learned to give comfort to anyone.</p>
<p>But that was not a thing Malfoy could say; there was <em>nothing</em> he could say, not to that. There was nothing to make that all right, no <em>it’s okay</em>, no <em>don’t think about it</em>. Not when he was the one who had just pushed Harry to see what had always seemed so clear to him.</p>
<p>He could have let Harry keep believing in a world so much more caring than his own.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s grip had loosed on Harry’s arms to a gentleness that treated Harry with the fragility he now had. Malfoy reached one hesitant hand up to rest as lightly as he could against the side of Harry’s face.</p>
<p>Tears glittered in Harry’s eyes until one slid down his cheek. Malfoy brushed it off with the pad of his thumb.</p>
<p>Harry’s hands unballed against Malfoy’s chest. His fingers spread gingerly over the knit cables on Malfoy’s jumper, the fingertips of one hand brushing up past the ribbing of the collar to brush—barely, <em>barely</em>—against the top of one collarbone.</p>
<p>Malfoy hated the part of him in awe. It felt cruel and selfish, that little part of his mind that whispered, <em>Finally</em>.</p>
<p><em>Shut up. You don’t </em>deserve<em> this. This isn’t even </em>that<em>, you heartless bastard</em>—</p>
<p>And then he looked at Harry’s face.</p>
<p>His goddamn beautiful warm brown face, every feature strong and perfect. Looking at Harry at such a close proximity was like fire.</p>
<p>Harry had never learned to hide his emotions the way Malfoy had; every thought and feeling had always played out so naked and obvious on his face, broadcast unfiltered for the whole world to read.</p>
<p>Malfoy could see writ plain what Harry felt now, and it was something Malfoy had never dared <em>hope</em> for, as many times as he once had imagined it: Harry’s eyes turned up to Malfoy’s, as bright as noon sun sparkling off green glass, his chin tilted upward, and his full expressive mouth was parted slightly in an unasked question.</p>
<p>And, <em>God</em>, how Malfoy wanted to answer it.</p>
<p>Instead, he let go and took a careful step back.</p>
<p>Harry pulled his hands back halfway but didn’t know what to do with them; it was almost like they weren’t his own for a moment.</p>
<p>He felt untethered and exposed.</p>
<p>“You were about to kiss me, weren’t you,” Malfoy told him, miserable with regret.</p>
<p>“No,” Harry replied with a frantic note rising, so obvious a lie that they both heard it for the <em>yes</em> it was.</p>
<p>“Don’t.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>He hadn’t meant to ask that in response.</p>
<p>Malfoy raked a hand through his hair and let out a deep aggravated breath. “<em>Because</em>. Because you’re recently divorced and lonely and probably just starved for affection of <em>any</em> kind, even if it’s something you don’t actually <em>want</em> and would regret later. Because I just pulled the rug out from under you on something you had believed in. I just took away something you trusted, and you’re—you’re <em>upset</em>, I made you <em>cry</em>.” He shook his head. “You don’t want to kiss <em>me</em>. There are just a hundred things you’re feeling right now and I’m just the person who happens to be in arm’s reach.”</p>
<p>Harry was stung. “That makes me sound like a jerk.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked stricken at that. “No. Christ, no. <em>I’d</em> be the jerk, if I allowed you. I’d <em>know</em> you were only confused and hurting, so I’d just be taking advantage of that. I’d be so <em>fucking</em> selfish to use the fact that I just—shattered part of you—to get something I want.” He took another step back, hearing what he’d just admitted. He was against the sink now, no further he could get away. “You don’t… You don’t actually <em>want</em> that, do you? It’s not something you’ve <em>thought</em> about, not until just now, when it would have been <em>anyone’s</em> natural impulse, no matter who the other person was.”</p>
<p><em>Of course</em>, Harry thought, relieved at how much sense that made.</p>
<p>“No, I’ve <em>never</em> thought about that,” he said, with the fervent honesty of someone who absolutely believed they were telling the truth. “You’re right—I don’t know what came over me.”</p>
<p>“Loneliness,” Malfoy suggested. “Despair.”</p>
<p>“You must think me an idiot.”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy assured him firmly, and then with a thin smile, added, “Well, not for that, anyway.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes were still wet with tears. They stuck his dark lashes stuck together and left a sheen where they had spread underneath. And still he just smiled faintly back and said, “Right, just for about a hundred other things. Good. So everything’s business as usual then.”</p>
<p>Of course this was why he was a Gryffindor, with the bravery to hold his head up high and make smart remarks while his whole world felt like it was falling apart and turning inside out from directions he never even thought to steel himself for.</p>
<p>Still with that faint smile that wasn’t really a smile, Harry sank back sideways onto his kitchen chair. “You thought it was stupid to trust good people to be good,” he said. “While I believed that they were as—”</p>
<p>“As good as you would have been under the same circumstances.”</p>
<p>Harry winced. “No.”</p>
<p>“Yes. So you believed me to be a dreadful cynic, of course.” Malfoy leaned back, resting his hands along the edge of the sink. It was a nonchalant casual pose that he hoped hid how he still felt a hundred things that made him want to scream, or maybe break into pieces. “And of course I was. And am.”</p>
<p>“But you were right.”</p>
<p>“I hate being right.” Malfoy seemed so tired now, everything drained away to a weary naked emptiness.</p>
<p>Harry could see a glimpse of that fragile something Malfoy sometimes let slip to the surface in unguarded moments. Something bone-brittle, something not to be handled except with slow gentle reverence.</p>
<p>Harry felt unsuited for the task; Harry wanted desperately to try anyway.</p>
<p>But Malfoy slid shut the door on that vulnerable place inside. He drummed his fingertips along the sink’s edge, then looked at Harry. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”</p>
<p>“I… ? What, <em>no</em>, I—”</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>.” Malfoy sighed. “I think you need to go back to the Orchard House now.”</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>“But nothing. I have to finish going through this enormous pile of parchment you’ve foisted on me, it’s getting late, and I have work in the morning. Besides,” he added, “if you stick around much longer, there’s nothing good that’s going to come of this.” He waved a vague hand in the space between the two of them. “I give it another five minutes and best case, we’re fighting again. Worst case, you decide to double down on the stupid stubborn streak that seems to guide half your decisions and insist that you <em>did</em> want—what you almost did—and… And I don’t know that I’m a good enough person yet to argue you out of that a second time.” He didn’t quite meet Harry’s eyes after saying that. “So you should go now.”</p>
<p>“But—Hold on,” Harry said, getting to his feet, “are you saying that you <em>want</em> me to—?”</p>
<p>“<em>Harry</em>.” The shadow of a smile drifted across Malfoy’s face, sad and threadbare. “Neither of us has been known to have an overabundance of good judgment, not when it comes to the other. Let’s please not test new limits of that.”</p>
<p>“<em>Hold on</em>,” Harry repeated. “Stop interrupting me. Are you saying you <em>don’t</em> want to talk me out of—I mean. That then you <em>do</em> want to…” The rest of that sentence took more courage to finish than even Harry Potter could find. Instead, he went with an indirect approach to the question he really wanted to ask: “You’ve been calling me Harry.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>Jesus</em>. Okay. That settles it.” Malfoy stopped leaning against the sink to make a shooing motion with both hands. “Get out, Potter. Time to leave.”</p>
<p>He moved towards Harry as if he was about to take him by the arm and guide him to the front door, but stopped before actually touching him.</p>
<p>Harry held up his hands. “All right,” he said, trying to sound light and joking. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”</p>
<p>“When you turned up on my doorstep, were you really expecting me to roll out a warm welcome?” Malfoy countered as they moved back into the sitting room.</p>
<p>Redressing himself for the cold outside, Harry admitted, “No. I expected something—something much worse than what I got.”</p>
<p>“Sorry to disappoint,” Malfoy tossed back, settling himself on the small couch again with a shield of paperwork in his hands.</p>
<p>Harry hesitated by the front door, not sure what the correct exit line was. <em>It’s been fun? Thanks for dinner? Sorry about whatever the hell just happened?</em></p>
<p>“Good night,” he said. And then, before he could think about it, he blurted out, “Don’t—Don’t sign it yet, all right? Not that you were planning to anyway, but… Just don’t, not yet.”</p>
<p>Before Malfoy could say anything in response, Harry opened the door and was gone.</p>
<p>Malfoy stared at the door after it closed.</p>
<p>“Well, <em>shit</em>,” he announced to the empty room.</p>
<p>As Harry walked back towards the Orchard House, he knew he may have sounded like he’d actually been struck with an actual plan for once in his life, but he had gotten out before he had been forced to admit he still had no idea what he was going to do.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he said to himself. “God damned bloody fucking <em>hell</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "For You" by Bruce Springsteen.</p>
<p>Hope y'all are enjoying so far! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Seven</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Can it be that all us heroes have a path but not a plan?</em><br/>
<em>Oh, Ariadne, I’m coming, this maze inside my mind</em><br/>
<em>I wish I had that string, it’s so damn dark</em><br/>
<em>I think I’m going blind</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry knew he may have sounded like he had a plan. Or part of a plan. Or the beginning of <em>starting</em> to have part of one.</p>
<p>He didn’t.</p>
<p>He didn’t know what he was going to do; he just knew that now it seemed unbearable to follow through on this assignment the way he had been told to.</p>
<p>
  <em>Everyone you’ve ever known has told you the same thing over and over: You have a problem with authority, you’re allergic to obeying the rules, you suck at following orders.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And you’ve always argued back—</em>
</p>
<p><em>Not when it really </em>matters<em>, I’m not some kind of loose cannon, I know how to fall in line when I have to, I do the right thing.</em></p>
<p><em>Then what are you doing </em>now<em>?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Idiot.</em>
</p>
<p>Back in his room at the Orchard House, Harry got as far as taking off his boots and setting his glasses on the bedside table, before collapsing backward onto the bed to stare up at the ceiling. His whole mind reeled in a tangled tumble of far too many things that deserved answers, none of which he could quite catch onto before it slipped away for something <em>else</em> demanding attention.</p>
<p>He should figure out what he was actually going to do.</p>
<p>He should also figure out whether he was actually going to <em>kiss</em>—</p>
<p>He <em>wasn’t</em>.</p>
<p>Was he?</p>
<p>
  <em>No. Of course not.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Well…</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Well. Maybe.</em>
</p>
<p>But if he was, it was only for the reasons Malfoy had supplied for him to use: Harry had been upset. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. So maybe it <em>could</em> have been anyone. Maybe it <em>was</em> just that there was a person right <em>there</em> with his arms around him and his face so close to Harry’s, mouth soft and warm and those flushed pink cheeks in that pale round face with its neat pointed chin, his silver-gray eyes, his mouth, lips parted just a little, like an invitation—</p>
<p>
  <em>No. You don’t see Malfoy like that.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Merlin, it’s </em>Malfoy<em>.</em></p>
<p>Draco Malfoy<em>, remember?</em></p>
<p>Draco Malfoy, who used to be such a pompous insufferable git. Draco Malfoy, who had reeked of pedigreed bloodlines, his mother’s breeding, his father’s wealth, who came from a house more a relic to a dying age than an actual home. Draco Malfoy, weedy and sickly-pale, with a sneer like cold metal on that silver-spoon mouth. Draco Malfoy, with hair slicked back against his skull and expensive black robes cut in severe silhouettes. Draco Malfoy, <em>the fucking Death Eater</em>.</p>
<p>But also Draco Malfoy, who had tried to earn some shred of redemption for himself. Draco Malfoy, who had people he cared about now, who loved a little Muggle diner. Whose gray eyes had lost so much of the hate and malice they used to carry so naturally.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy, who had rebuilt himself into someone completely else.</p>
<p>And yet was still so blessedly caustic and contrary and exhilarating to trade barbs with.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy, proud and guarded, soft and thorny, with hair in loose waves and a cable-knit jumper, Draco Malfoy, color in his cheeks, Draco Malfoy, chubby effete barista, Draco Malfoy, beautiful wrists, Draco Malfoy, long limbs, perfect limbs, the shape of those long legs in jeans.</p>
<p>At the thought of that, Harry resolutely tried—and failed—to forget the way that Malfoy had looked in those jeans. Specifically, Malfoy’s arse. Malfoy’s round, <em>perfect</em> arse. And once he’d resigned himself to accepting the fact that he’d <em>noticed</em>, Harry tried valiantly to tell himself that <em>anyone</em> would have. <em>Anyone</em> would be distracted at the realization of what Malfoy’s body could do to denim, especially from behind.</p>
<p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Bloody FUCKING fuck</em>.</p>
<p>Harry scrubbed his hand across his eyes and dragged one of the pillows over his face so he could curse aloud without his voice carrying very far in this old quiet house late at night.</p>
<p>“He’s not <em>so</em> much of an improvement on the old days,” Harry told himself sternly. “He’s still so much the same person. There are still <em>plenty</em> of ways he hasn’t changed a single bit.”</p>
<p>
  <em>And those were the things that transfixed you, even then. The boy with the sharp tongue and the arch of a single eyebrow.</em>
</p>
<p>“Fuck, fucking <em>hell</em>, fuck,” Harry retorted, having resolutely refused to learn that he rarely won arguments with himself. After all, those were fights with the stubbornest person he had ever met. “That’s rubbish, you couldn’t be more <em>wrong</em>. Do I need to <em>remind</em> you—”</p>
<p>
  <em>You didn’t almost kiss some random person who happened to be in the right place at the wrong moment.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You almost kissed Draco Malfoy.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And you meant it.</em>
</p>
<p>Harry stared at the ceiling. He tried to memorize the shadow of a tree through the window as though it was the most important thing in the world, as though learning its shape required every ounce of his thoughts.</p>
<p>And still something Ron had once said to him pushed its way through insistently, as things Ron said were wont to do: usually perceptive, usually sound advice, and usually listened to a little too late.</p>
<p><em>You don’t always think before you do things, mate</em>, Ron had said. <em>So I reckon it’s at least a good thing you almost never do anything you don’t really mean.</em></p>
<p>Harry groaned and sat up. “Listen, Ron, you know I love you, but now’s <em>not</em> the time to get all up in my subconscious,” he muttered. “I’ve not got the time to deal with <em>that</em> right now.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco knew Potter didn’t have anything even approaching a plan.</p>
<p>That was all right; he hadn’t expected that of him.</p>
<p>If anything, Draco was impressed by the fact that Potter had the foresight to tell him not to sign anything yet.</p>
<p>Which meant Potter realized that maybe he should <em>make</em> a plan.</p>
<p>And that? <em>That</em> was progress.</p>
<p>He sure hadn’t learned that from the Aurors; maybe Potter hadn’t really learned <em>anything</em> from them, not when he was still so impetuous and prone to going off-book without a thought. Not when he chafed so much under the very <em>idea</em> of his job that he didn’t even wear a uniform while on an assignment, didn’t flash a badge as a greeting, and fidgeted with something between shame and resentment whenever he’d talked directly about work.</p>
<p>There was a strange comfort in assessing that array of small details.</p>
<p>Harry Potter hated being an Auror.</p>
<p>Harry Potter still hated doing what he was told.</p>
<p>Draco could use that.</p>
<p>“You’re still such a fucking Slytherin, aren’t you,” Draco murmured, running his fingertips over the lines of text on the top page before fanning through the sheets of parchment.</p>
<p>He knew what he’d just told himself was supposed to make him feel at least a <em>little</em> guilty, but it didn’t.</p>
<p>It wasn’t <em>his</em> fault that Potter was still so dependably <em>Potter</em>. And it certainly wasn’t <em>his</em> job to change that.</p>
<p>So he might as well use it to his advantage.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy got up to change into his pajamas. He washed his face and took his meds and brushed his hair, gathering it back in the elastic tie still looped around his wrist. He got out his good pens, his good stationery, a legal pad barely used, and that thick infuriating stack of parchment. He took the glass of port Potter had left still half full on the mantel, and consolidated the remains of the two slices of pie, Harry’s barely touched, onto the same plate.</p>
<p>He figured he may regret the port and pie, but he was good at regret and so was comfortable bringing such small victimless regrets on himself as “ill-advised beverages” and “probably more dessert than strictly <em>necessary</em>.”</p>
<p>Those were things for his future self to dismiss.</p>
<p>Draco already had enough more important matters delegated to his future self.</p>
<p>Such as: the lean compact planes of Harry Potter’s body. Those bright green eyes with their thick dark lashes. His cheekbones, his mouth, his jawline, the hollow of his throat.</p>
<p><em>Christ, what a mistake that would be. You’re not </em>that<em> stupid, Alf—</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Malfoy. Whoever you are now.</em>
</p>
<p>It wasn’t as though there weren’t a thousand other gorgeous, equally unattainable men sweeping through every summer, anonymous and uncomplicated, without shared histories and fraught pasts and all-too-known personality flaws and <em>three children</em>.</p>
<p>It wasn’t as though Draco hadn’t spent the last couple years cataloging memories of other men with whom he’d decided he stood no chance.</p>
<p><em>Just throw Harry Potter back on that list</em>, Draco told himself, wry and bitter. <em>After all, he used to </em>be<em> the list all on his own.</em></p>
<p>It was nice, in a way; he was almost lucky, in a way: an impossible idea can never become a real person to hurt and let you down.</p>
<p>And so Draco Malfoy set himself up at the kitchen table, everything methodically arranged before him.</p>
<p>He had work to do.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry got as far as pulling his pajamas out of his bag and looking at them, without getting as far as actually putting them on.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was the jetlag catching up; perhaps it was how little sleep he had really had in the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two making simple tasks impossible, like “getting ready for bed” and “miraculously solving a moral quandary of wartime government property seizure.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it was the fact that his whole mind kept sliding against his will back to those last few minutes in Malfoy’s kitchen.</p>
<p>He could still feel the echoes of that overwhelming urge to stretch his neck upwards to reach Malfoy’s mouth with his own, could still feel the way Malfoy’s body had felt solid and plush against him, as though it had left a faint imprint still lingering over his skin.</p>
<p>And from there, of course, his mind just wanted to slip further down that path, crowding his imagination with a jumble of notions and too-vivid images of things he’d never considered wanting before, of things he’d never realized he’d wanted for years. At least, not from <em>Malfoy</em>.</p>
<p>He had fallen in love so hard and married so soon after, never one to mull too long before acting on what felt like the right thing to do.</p>
<p>And it had been the right decision at the time. He was still sure of that, despite everything.</p>
<p>He couldn’t imagine how he would have gotten through those first couple years—while everything from the war was still so fresh and raw and still scabbing over—if he had been sleeping alone at night, without someone safe and real beside him, anchoring him back to a good real world in the darkness.</p>
<p>Since the divorce, that was the thing that he still found himself fantasizing about on late lonely nights: the comforting shape of Ginny stretched out beside him, her petite frame, her slender muscular limbs; the way moonlight and streetlamps would filter through their bedroom window, faintly illuminating the map of freckles over her skin.</p>
<p>Sometimes he thought of trailing kisses over those freckles. Sometimes he thought of other things, of the feeling of her body against his, the feeling of his hands on her slim waist, her lean strong legs wrapped around him, the muscles of her thighs pressed to his hips.</p>
<p>In the past few months of living alone, she had been the only person he had ever thought about like that, to the point where now “having fantasies at night” felt almost solely as if it meant “missing Ginny.”</p>
<p>So now, laid out on his back on the bed like a starfish, he felt a sudden pang of guilt at the thoughts he had started to entertain, as though it was cheating on his ex-wife to hypothesize on the possibility of a certain Slytherin’s long bare arms and legs, the secret poetry of those forearms hidden under the sleeves of his jumper, the hope in the inviting softness of his thighs in those jeans.</p>
<p>To imagine the possibilities that could have been, if he’d done it, if he’d pressed his mouth to Malfoy’s, if Malfoy had kissed him back, as hungry and deep and urgent as Harry felt now, picturing it; picturing Malfoy tugging him closer, pulling Harry’s body flush against his own, soft and warm and real; picturing himself pushing Malfoy up against the kitchen wall, sliding a hand around Malfoy’s waist, up under his cable-knit jumper, spreading his fingers over bare skin; maybe getting his other hand around the back of Malfoy’s neck, maybe tugging loose those waves of ice-blond hair, before running that hand down his back, past the waistband of those jeans, to that perfect <em>perfect</em> damn-it-who-<em>allowed</em>-this arse.</p>
<p><em>How could you</em>, a small insistent voice broke in<em>. You’re supposed to be in mourning for your dead marriage.</em></p>
<p><em>Everyone </em>else<em> is.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>You can see it in the pity in their eyes. You should almost be surprised that they don’t bring by casseroles like your life is now a never-ending one-man funeral.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But of course, if people knew you were currently lying on a bed in a room in Maine, unable to sleep for how much you’re thinking of getting off with a former Death Eater, they’d realize. They’d realize. They’d realize you don’t deserve their pity.</em>
</p>
<p><em>They’d realize that Harry Potter might not be as good as they thought</em>.</p>
<p>Before he could parse what he was doing and realize the complete illogic of it, Harry found himself groping for his mobile phone on the bedside table.</p>
<p>She answered on the fourth ring, a long pause on her end of the line before a groggy, “Hello? Who is this?”</p>
<p>“It’s Harry,” he said. “It shows who’s calling you if you look at the screen before you open the phone.”</p>
<p>“I—What. No. I <em>know</em> that, Harry. I was asleep, I just…” He heard her yawn, and pictured her stretching in their bed, under the huge patchwork quilt Molly had made them for their fifth anniversary. He wondered if she still slept on the one side of the bed, like he did, or if she had learned by now to sleep in the middle. “What is it? Is something wrong?”</p>
<p>“No,” he replied, maybe a bit too quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to—call and say hello, see how things were.”</p>
<p>“At six-thirty in the <em>morning</em>?” She sounded doubtful. It was the tone of voice she used when she suspected Harry wasn’t being entirely forthright.</p>
<p><em>You </em>actually<em> got a good night’s sleep last night?</em></p>
<p><em>It was </em>your<em> idea to take a break from field work?</em></p>
<p><em>You’re </em>sure<em> you’re all right?</em></p>
<p>“Six-thir—? Damn. I thought it was seven-thirty there.”</p>
<p>“There?” she repeated. “Where are you?”</p>
<p>“America,” he said. “For work.”</p>
<p>“You’re back out in the field?” She sounded surprised. “They’ve reassigned you from your desk position?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he replied, wincing at the defensive edge that came out.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s really good to hear, Harry,” she told him. He could tell she didn’t quite believe him, but she wanted to. “What are you doing in America?”</p>
<p>“Oh. I’m… I’m not sure I should say yet. It’s still ongoing and all, and I don’t think it’s the kind of thing they want spread all over.”</p>
<p>“What, do you think I’m going to take out a full-page ad in The Prophet?” Her voice was still pitched a little quiet, as if she might not want to wake someone.</p>
<p>“Is Albus in the bed?” Harry asked. “Was there a storm last night?”</p>
<p>“Yes, he is, and no, there wasn’t. We’re at the Burrow.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“We came out to—Actually, I was hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you about this. Remember how we used to talk about not staying in the house on Grimmauld Place forever? How we wanted to find a house in the countryside?”</p>
<p>Harry opened his mouth to reply but caught himself just in time: <em>You were the one who wanted to get a house in the countryside. I just—</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I just needed to get out of Grimmauld Place.</em>
</p>
<p>He frowned. That couldn’t be right. <em>He</em> was the one who dragged his feet and hedged and came up with reasons they couldn’t move out, not yet, let’s just wait another year, or two, or three. He was the one who would point out they <em>already</em> had this big house with all this room.</p>
<p>You don’t turn down a free house, especially not a house with all the space you could possibly want to hold the family you plan to have as soon as possible.</p>
<p>No matter how much accepting the house and moving in felt like yet another obligation he had to the dead.</p>
<p>“What about a house in the countryside?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Well, there’s a place for sale that I took the kids by to look at yesterday. It’s not too far from the family and I think it really has promise, Harry. I’m thinking that I really might want to—” She was interrupted then by a rumpled rustling and a few quiet mumbles just beyond hearing over the phone. Harry heard her put her hand over the mouthpiece of her mobile and say, her voice getting tinny and distant, “Shh, <em>shh</em>, Albie. Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to wake… I’m just talking on the telephone, see?… I’m talking to Daddy.”</p>
<p>“<em>Daddy</em>?” Albus’s voice broke through in sudden wakeful excitement.</p>
<p>“Oh, drat, hang on,” Ginny said. “Just a moment.” There was more shuffling on her end of the line; Harry pictured her moving to hold her phone by Albus’s head so he could talk.</p>
<p>“Hullo, Daddy,” he said, voice small and bright.</p>
<p>“Hey there, fella,” Harry replied, grinning broadly now. “Sorry we woke you up. It’s still <em>very</em> early in the morning, you know. I bet you the birds aren’t even awake yet, huh?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I can hear them,” Albus corrected him, then chirped softly to demonstrate.</p>
<p>“Is that a real bird in the room with you?”</p>
<p>A little giggle. “No, Daddy, that was <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>“Wow, <em>very</em> convincing,” Harry said. “You could be a champion birdcaller right there. Hey, can you do me a big favor? Can you let me talk to Mum some more and go back to sleep?”</p>
<p>“But I don’t <em>wanna</em> sleep. I wanna <em>talk</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know, fella, I know. Me too. But I need you to get a little more sleep. It’s going to be breakfast time before you know it. And we’re going to see each other at the end of the week, remember? You and James and Lily are coming to my place for the weekend.”</p>
<p>There was a wary pause as Albus thought that over. “And feed birds?”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Harry said, remembering how taken Albus had been with the pigeons and ducks in Regent’s Park when the children had last stayed with him. “We can feed birds, I promise.”</p>
<p>“’Kay. Love you, Daddy.”</p>
<p>“Love you too, fella.”</p>
<p>After a moment, Ginny was back. “I should probably let you go so Albus’ll actually fall back asleep, but. Long story short: There’s this house we looked at yesterday and I think I’d really like to consider it, but I’d like you to come take a look too.”</p>
<p>“Me? What for? You don’t need <em>my</em> go-ahead to buy a house, Gin.”</p>
<p>“I <em>know</em> I don’t. I just wanted to offer you a chance to see it and give your opinion. After all, your children will be living there half the time.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t think of a good argument for that, so he said, “All right, fair enough. I’ll get in touch when I’m back in London, and we’ll work something out.”</p>
<p>“All right. Talk to you later, Harry.”</p>
<p>“Later, Gin.” He almost added <em>Love you</em> out of old habit, but caught himself in time.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco rubbed his tired eyes and looked down at his handiwork. It was rash, he thought.</p>
<p>But that’s all that felt open to him: the rash risky responses, the paths that nearly begged for punishment.</p>
<p>It was either that, or he sign the paperwork and play nice and docile and cowed into cooperation, as if he could stomach the idea, as if he could stomach the notion that they might think him humbled.</p>
<p>Repentant, yes. Reformed, of course. But not <em>obedient</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "The Labyrinth Song" by Asaf Avidan.</p>
<p>I know this chapter was a bit shorter, comparatively, but should (I hope) have the next up in a few days.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Eight</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Don’t think I’ll see you around this winter</em><br/>
<em>And my tongue’s stuck full of splinters</em><br/>
<em>‘Cause I’m embarrassed to admit what I’ve been thinking</em><br/>
<em>Well, hope keeps some afloat, but for me, it’s no lifeboat</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>At five o’clock in the morning, Harry rolled over onto his side and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. He decided that counted as morning having come, so he was allowed to give up on pretending to sleep.</p>
<p><em>Besides</em>, he reasoned, <em>Malfoy said he had work in the morning, so I’m just making sure to catch him early. That’s proactive. Taking initiative. Responsible. Definitely not an excuse to justify another night of no sleep.</em></p>
<p>He showered, fixed his hair, and dressed in slacks and a button-up shirt, but then worried that might come across too officious. So he changed back into the jeans he had worn on the flight to Maine and one of the extra jumpers he’d brought.</p>
<p>And thought, <em>But the button-up is </em>green<em>.</em></p>
<p>Followed by, <em>Why does </em>that<em> matter? What’s wrong with me? Get it together, Potter.</em></p>
<p>He was fairly sure that jeans and a button-up shirt were what one wore on a medium-nice first date, although his own experiences with first dates had been minimal at best—Valentine’s Day in his school uniform at age fifteen, when he was the ill-fitting substitute for another boy who couldn’t be there; the Three Broomsticks in his worn hand-me-downs at seventeen, when he had already given a promise in a kiss.</p>
<p>He had never really had a chance to dress for a medium-nice first date as a grown man, and was pretty sure that this—going to pester your old nemesis about official paperwork before sunrise—was about as far from the right situation to test-drive that wardrobe as he could possibly get.</p>
<p>Still, it was another several minutes of indecision before he managed to convince himself he was as adequately clothed as he would ever be, threw on his pea coat, cast a warming charm on himself, and headed out into the night-dark morning.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Malfoy had been awake, but barely, when the knocking on his door started, loud and insistent.</p>
<p>“Come on, Malfoy,” Harry was saying, “We need to talk. I know you haven’t left yet, there’s no new footprints in the snow since last night—”</p>
<p>“My God,” Malfoy said, opening the door, “so you <em>did</em> pick up something akin to detective skills from your full decade of Auror training.”</p>
<p>The rush of winter air into the entryway was lessened considerably by Harry standing right there at the threshold, the warming magic coming off him in waves.</p>
<p>Harry blinked at the image of a barely awake Draco Malfoy standing barefoot a mere couple feet in front of him. He had a sleepy sort of petulance that Harry tried not to be endeared by, as Malfoy frowned at him through sleep-tousled hair with half-lidded, slow-blinking eyes. His blue Henley was rucked up above his plaid flannel pajama pants, exposing a slice of pale skin that distracted Harry entirely from everything he’d been planning to say.</p>
<p>“Um,” Harry started. “I… Er. Hi.”</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed with dramatic resignation and gestured Harry inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.</p>
<p>“I suppose you have a good reason to be up and about well before the crack of dawn?” Malfoy asked. He folded his arms, leaning against the door jamb leading into the room, watching Harry dispel the charm and take off his coat.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s carefully perfected expression of disapproval slipped only a moment as his still half-sleeping mind was derailed by Harry in a dark burgundy jumper over a green shirt, with professionally distressed narrow-legged jeans and the same Chelsea boots he’d worn the day before.</p>
<p>He wondered when Harry had started dressing so well, in clothes that accentuated his lean fit silhouette and brought out the incandescent green of his eyes, the warm tones of his skin.</p>
<p>
  <em>Harry couldn’t have possibly picked these clothes out himself, could he?</em>
</p>
<p><em>Weasley?</em> Although her style had always leaned functional and tomboyish from what little Malfoy could remember.</p>
<p><em>But Potter has no fashion sense, </em>Malfoy reminded himself.<em> Remember how outside his Hogwarts uniform, he always wore those baggy ragged clothes that never even looked like they belonged to—</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Of course.</em>
</p>
<p>It dawned on Malfoy that he had been making his judgments all those years ago based on unwanted hand-me-downs that Potter had never had any say in wearing.</p>
<p>But this—<em>this</em>—was Potter a decade older, a grown adult capable of choosing his own clothes.</p>
<p>And doing annoyingly well at it.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know what time you had to be at work in the morning,” Harry said. “And we need to talk about last night.”</p>
<p>Malfoy took a deep breath and let it out, combing his hair back from his face with his fingers. “Let’s not talk about last night,” he said. “I have drawn a veil over last night.” He made a motion like in a vague pantomime of sweeping a curtain closed, then tossed Harry a knowing look. “Unless you mean that we need to go through what should be done about my family’s estate. <em>That</em> we still need to settle.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Harry assured him, taking a seat in the same chair he’d been in last night. “We don’t have to talk about—anything else. I can just talk about what you should do about the paperwork I gave you.”</p>
<p>Malfoy tried to be annoyed at the way Harry seemed to think of this as <em>his</em> chair; he tried to hate the presumption that Harry should fit so well here.</p>
<p>“Oh, really?” Malfoy folded his arms more firmly and gave Harry a cool impassive gaze. “Pray tell, Potter, what should I do?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t—I didn’t really have a full plan when I left last night, but—”</p>
<p>“But you do now?”</p>
<p>“Well, no, not entirely.”</p>
<p>“But you had <em>part</em> of a plan when you left last night?”</p>
<p>“Well. No. Not… Not entirely.”</p>
<p>“You give me such faith in the people the Ministry trusts to handle important personal matters.”</p>
<p>“The Ministry doesn’t trust me to do anything, remember?” Harry returned.</p>
<p>“Oh, right. Yes. Consider my faith in the situation restored.”</p>
<p>“Do you really have to be like this all the time?”</p>
<p>“With you?” Malfoy replied. “When have I ever been anything but?”</p>
<p>Harry looked back, an even challenge in those eyes. “Last night,” he answered. “In your kitchen. But you don’t want to talk about that, remember?”</p>
<p>Malfoy pretended to ignore that. “Can we make this move a little faster? I’ve got to get ready for work. So let’s skip over the part where we quibble over whether you really deserve any credit for figuring out how to handle the situation and—”</p>
<p>“Hey, hang on a minute—”</p>
<p>“Relax, Potter. I’m not one of your fan club. You’re not going to disillusion me: I already know you have no idea what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>Harry got back to his feet. “I think you’re underselling me a bit there, Malfoy. For starters, I had been thinking: You don’t listen to me.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I thought we’d established that,” Malfoy said. “But I’m willing to hear you out now.”</p>
<p>“No, no, you don’t understand what I’m saying: <em>You don’t listen to me</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy raised his eyebrows in comprehension. “<em>Ah</em>. Astute use of common knowledge there.”</p>
<p>“So I told you last night <em>not</em> to sign it,” Harry continued. “But I also told you that you <em>should</em> sign it.”</p>
<p>“But either way, I could very believably have gone off and disobeyed a direct order from an Auror,” Malfoy finished for him, picking up two packets from the table beside him. “One step ahead of you as usual, Potter.”</p>
<p>He handed them over to Harry.</p>
<p>One was the pile of Ministry parchment Harry had delivered the night before. The other seemed to be a letter in a cream-colored envelope from an expensive stationery set, with the word’s “<em>Head Auror A. Abernathy</em>” written on the front in Malfoy’s perfect script. It was the handwriting of someone who had been drilled relentlessly in Roundhand penmanship from the moment his fingers could hold a quill.</p>
<p>Harry turned them over to look at the backs and then gave Malfoy an amused look. “You’re trying to pass for a normal Muggle twentysomething in the year 2008, and you own <em>sealing wax</em>?”</p>
<p>“Just for situations like this. Don’t try to open them; they’re sealed for Abernathy. Only he can break the wax.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned, studying the Malfoy crest pressed into the two wide coins of pearlescent lavender wax. “It’s enchanted? But you don’t have—”</p>
<p>“A wand? No. But I do have this.” Malfoy held his hand out towards Harry, presenting him with the sight of an old signet ring. He declined to add that the reason he was still wearing it was because he’d been so tired by the time he was done that he’d forgotten he even had it on when he collapsed into bed.</p>
<p>Without thinking, Harry reached out and took Malfoy’s hand to get a closer look at the ring. “It’s enchanted to make the seal breakable only to whoever the wearer intends the message for?” he asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy almost began to curl his fingers around Harry’s. He slipped his hand away. “Yes, congratulations on your second piece of detective work in one morning.” He smiled slightly. “I suppose technically the Ministry’s supposed to own <em>this</em> too, aren’t they?”</p>
<p>“Technically,” Harry agreed, flexing his fingers and rubbing his palm against the top of one thigh. “But given the lack of cooperation I reckon you’ve got here”—he held up the papers in his other hand—“I’m figuring we’re way past the point of quibbling over a bit of old jewelry.”</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded. He tried to favor Harry with a careless smirk, but it slipped into something apprehensive and breakable for just a moment. “If I were to… Oh, say, have written the Head Auror a moving and eloquent missive, telling him in eternally well-mannered language that if I own my estate, I own my estate, and if they think they can bully me into just handing it over like a child getting punched for his pocket money, then they can absolutely fuck off with that whole notion, then… Then do you imagine that would be grounds enough to put me back in Azkaban?”</p>
<p>“No,” Harry answered, too quickly, “no, of course not.”</p>
<p>Malfoy gave him a stern look, as he was far too familiar with Harry’s habit of answering impulsively with the thing that felt like it <em>should</em> be true.</p>
<p>Harry thought about it harder, biting his nails distractedly as he focused on trying to remember everything he’d learned of wizarding law in his last near-decade as an Auror.</p>
<p>“No, I don’t <em>think</em> so,” he confirmed after a long minute. “They may go after you for violation of your release on license, but they can’t do anything about that unless you actually physically return to England, and even if you <em>did</em> go back, and they <em>did</em> reopen your case for breaking the terms of your release, I don’t think it would be a good look for the department to throw you back in <em>Azkaban</em>. And I can’t think of any other crime you could be charged with in Maine that would warrant the regional Auror Division here pursuing deportation.”</p>
<p>Running a thumbnail along his lower lip, Malfoy mused, “Holding an American work visa on a fake identity?”</p>
<p>“Fake <em>Muggle</em> identity,” Harry said. “That’s a crime, but it’s under Muggle law enforcement’s jurisdiction. The Auror Division in the States would have to refer it to them, if they knew about it and wanted to send you down for it. But they wouldn’t do that.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“You’re a Death Eater. Or you were. Magical law enforcement on both sides of the pond would do whatever they could to keep ownership of any cases involving Voldemort’s people.” Harry smiled wanly. “It’s not you personally; it’s just a general safety precaution.”</p>
<p>“Understood. I can just imagine what would happen if either of the Carrows, or—or Selwyn—somehow managed to get sent down on some little petty felony and get themselves in with the general population of a Muggle prison.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, not really a situation where getting Al Capone for tax evasion is a good-enough solution to the real problem.”</p>
<p>Malfoy cocked his head to one side. “How do you suppose your boss would take it if he realized you were using all your Auror knowledge to help the enemy?”</p>
<p>“That’s why I wanted this job when I was back in school,” Harry replied, a little too fast and sharp. “I wanted to help protect people from things that might do them harm.”</p>
<p>Hearing that answer, Malfoy was struck with two realizations, both of which he resented himself for. One was: <em>God, this Gryffindor idealism is part of why I still have it bad for him, isn’t it?</em> The other was: <em>Oh, good. I can use that.</em></p>
<p>“So you’ll do what you can to keep them from finding any excuses to pull me back over there and throw me back in… ?” He wanted to sound brave and careless, but his nerve withered on the last word. It was too important a question; it was too important and frightening to contemplate the fact that Azkaban might still be on the table for him, and the best hope he had for keeping that option as slim as possible was Harry’s answer right now.</p>
<p>“Of course,” Harry promised him. His voice sounded so certain and definite, and his eyes shone at Malfoy both serious and fervent. He had that resolute Gryffindor look again, now shining with something both noble and so formidably <em>good</em>.</p>
<p>Malfoy had to look away before he did something stupid. He cleared his throat and gestured at the papers in Harry’s hands. “It’s not illegal, what I’m doing here. I’ve as much right as anyone to decline to sign over something I’m the rightful owner of, and also to write a strongly worded letter to a public official.”</p>
<p>“No, you’re absolutely allowed that, you’re right. Though I guess I should warn you—as if you didn’t already know—‘being an inconvenient pain in the arse’ isn’t going to put you in anyone’s good graces, but I reckon all they’ll be able to do is send someone else to try and persuade you harder.”</p>
<p>Malfoy winced.</p>
<p>“I warned you last night. I told you that would happen.”</p>
<p>With a sharp bitter laugh, Malfoy asked, “How does it feel to have hitched your wagon to such a band of shining white knights?”</p>
<p>Harry felt a hot flush of anger and shame come rushing up his face, telling him exactly what he would normally snap: <em>We’re doing the right thing.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I’m doing the right thing.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We’re on the side of good.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We’re making the world safer and better and cleaner.</em>
</p>
<p>“Lousy,” Harry murmured.</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded. “Yeah, it seems lousy from where I’m standing too.”</p>
<p>They were both quiet for a moment. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say to that.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat self-consciously. “So is that all that this is?” he asked, holding up the envelope. “A really posh ‘fuck you’ letter?”</p>
<p>“Not exactly. Sort of. Basically. I plead the fifth.” Malfoy sighed and rubbed an absentminded hand up and down his forearm. “I’m trying to give you as much plausible deniability as possible. Just play to type here, Potter, and accept a buffer of ignorance.”</p>
<p>Harry watched as Malfoy distractedly rumpled his sleeve partway up his left forearm, revealing the bottom edge of something dark and familiar on his skin. But it looked <em>exceptionally</em> black against Malfoy’s fair skin. His instinct was to reach out and take Malfoy’s wrist to get a closer look, but he suspected how unwelcome that would be.</p>
<p>Malfoy caught the where Harry was looking and sighed. “Yes, Potter, there it is.” He wanted to tug his sleeve down as far as it would go, but he pushed it up instead and held out his forearm. “Here, for your viewing pleasure, in case you were worried it might be rude to <em>ask</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned, leaning forward to study it with concern. “Malfoy, that's really—”</p>
<p>“Dark?” Draco finished for him with something like wry regret. “Thank God for your eagle-eyed power of observation there.” He studied his own forearm for a moment and then shook his head at himself. “Word of advice, Potter: Don’t ever find yourself thinking, ‘Well, Voldemort’s dead and I’ve a free afternoon, reckon I can just attempt to DIY a Dark Mark removal.’”</p>
<p>Harry gaped. “<em>You tried to</em>—?”</p>
<p>Malfoy ran a hand over the Mark thoughtfully. “Well, you know how it is, you’re young, it’s summer in the South of France, and you figure, hey, why the hell not?”</p>
<p>“It… It, er, <em>backfired</em>, I take it?”</p>
<p>“Again your observational skill astounds.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Harry mused, finding the kind of light sarcasm that felt to Malfoy like kindness, “I reckon only a cocky bastard like you would even think to try such a thing in the first place.”</p>
<p>Draco looked thoughtful. “No,” he disagreed quietly. “Not cocky.” He didn’t look at Harry; his gaze was fixed on his forearm held out like an offering in front of him. A strange expression knit his brows as he studied his own body as though it were someone else’s.</p>
<p>Harry took a step forward and closed a hand lightly over Malfoy’s wrist, just below where the Mark ended. The side of his thumb brushed against the bottom curve of the snake as he gently lifted Malfoy’s arm to get a better look. The lines of the Mark were a little raised and uneven to the touch, all of them as black as if it had been freshly branded into his skin only the day before.</p>
<p>“What did you do?” Harry asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy willed himself not to yank his arm away. He thought he might be holding his breath. “What did I… ? Oh. I availed myself of a wand belonging to a Beauxbatons graduate a few years older than us. He had lovely hips and lousy ideals, but I was in a rather low and desperate place at the time and was willing to try anything to see if I could— You know.” He laughed, soft and hollow. “You’re probably right about me having been a cocky bastard. I really <em>did</em> believe in the moment that I might be able to undo one of the most complicated and powerful bits of dark magic I had ever seen, using just my own force of will and a borrowed wand.”</p>
<p>Running his thumb back and forth over the underside of the snake, Harry said, “I’d believe it too. I’ve met that force of will.”</p>
<p>Malfoy knew he should extricate himself from Harry’s grasp. He didn’t want to anymore. “It’s got nothing on yours, Potter.”</p>
<p>“What happened when you tried?” Harry asked.</p>
<p>“I spent three days certain I was dying, and another three days after that wishing I would. And all the while, it burned. It’s looked like this ever since,” Malfoy said. It should feel vulnerable and unwelcome, admitting all this to Harry Potter. Instead, Harry was the first person that Malfoy felt he could tell and have even a <em>chance</em> of being understood. “I realized then if I were to try cutting it out as my next resort, it would probably kill me.”</p>
<p>“<em>Cutting it out</em>?” Harry repeated, eyes wide with horror. His grip on Malfoy’s wrist tightened protectively.</p>
<p>Malfoy blinked, almost bemused at Harry’s shock. “Yes. Well, I didn’t try that, if you’ll notice. Bayonne was not… my best of times.” <em>Yet I kept the option of death off the table, even then. It felt so </em>selfish<em> to make that my last resort, no matter how close “last resort” was to being “next resort” so many days during that time</em>. “Anyway, after that particularly memorable week, I decided I was done with anywhere where I was Draco Malfoy, so I left and became someone else. I’ll have been Alfred Morris for five years this summer.”</p>
<p>Harry let go but didn’t step away. “Do you ever miss Draco Malfoy?”</p>
<p>“No. <em>I</em> still live with me every single day, after all.” Malfoy paused. “Why? Do you?”</p>
<p>Harry grinned up at him. “<em>That</em> pompous git? If you’d asked me two days ago, I’d’ve thought you were mad.”</p>
<p>“And now?”</p>
<p>“<em>Now</em> I’m trying to figure how I’m supposed to answer that. I don’t know the answer, and the person asking me the question is <em>also</em> the person who forbade me from bringing up the last part of last night.”</p>
<p>“Yet you keep trying to do it.”</p>
<p>“I thought we’d established that I’m shit at following orders.”</p>
<p>Harry was still standing far too close, still with a teasing glint in his eyes.</p>
<p>Malfoy made himself take a step back.</p>
<p>“I have to get ready for work,” he informed Harry. “I wasn’t banking on you waking up this early. I hadn’t pegged you for a morning person; I remember back at school, you looked like you’d rolled straight out of bed to the breakfast table every morning.” He regarded Harry with an arch look. “Unless you just never fell asleep last night.”</p>
<p>Harry forced a chuckle at that. “I’ve been in Maine less than a day,” he commented, “I have no idea what time I’m even supposed to feel like it is right now.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh. Well. I’m going to go make myself presentable. Feel free to occupy yourself in here, just don’t break anything.” Malfoy waved a hand around the room and went back into his bedroom. Before he closed the door behind him, Harry caught part of a glimpse of a small room dominated by a large bed rumpled with blankets.</p>
<p>A minute later, Harry could hear the faint sound of Malfoy getting in the shower. He hung around the sitting room, sitting down again, standing back up, feeling awkward and out of place now that he’d been left alone.</p>
<p>Now that he’d been left alone, apprehensive about the two envelopes that had been entrusted to him.</p>
<p>Now that he’d been left alone, acutely aware of the fact that Draco Malfoy was just through the wall, definitely in the shower, definitely naked, definitely with a cascade of hot water running down over his body, maybe with his head tilted back, eyes closed, hands in his hair or sliding over his skin, or—</p>
<p>Harry quickly crossed to the far end of the sitting room and examined the dish of beach glass again with intense focus, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world right now.</p>
<p>He found the book he’d started on the mantel, with a bookmark in it to mark the page he’d set it down on the night before, splayed open facedown.</p>
<p>He picked it up; he put it back down.</p>
<p>He paced back over to the front window, and then to the pocket door into the kitchen, biting a hangnail with determination. He could tell from what Malfoy said—or how he said it—that the envelope addressed to Abernathy might be more complicated than just a straightforward <em>fuck you and the horse you rode in on</em>.</p>
<p>Harry was dying to know what it <em>did</em> say, but Malfoy seemed determined to protect Harry by not telling him. And seemed also to think Harry was strong-willed and contrary enough to have opened the letter against Malfoy’s directions, so had sealed them magically against that.</p>
<p>To his annoyance, Harry figured Malfoy might be right. It was going to look bad enough for him that he had taken this job off-book without permission and come back unsuccessful. He didn’t need to give the appearance of actually <em>helping</em> Malfoy refuse to comply.</p>
<p>Then again, it’s not as though he hadn’t done just that.</p>
<p>There were so many things he could have said last night to try to convince Malfoy to rethink this. There were arguments he could have made, but hadn’t. Probably those things wouldn’t have done a thing to sway Malfoy, but at least he would have been able to say that he’d said them.</p>
<p>He could have refused to back down.</p>
<p>He was so good at that.</p>
<p>If “refusing to back down” was an Olympic event, Harry James Potter could medal for England.</p>
<p>But he hadn’t fought back very hard this time.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s refusal wasn’t an acceptable outcome, not by the Aurors’ expectations.</p>
<p><em>Even though it’s a lousy thing to ask of someone</em>, Harry thought. <em>He was right to refuse.</em></p>
<p><em>See?</em> the spiteful voice inside him piped up. <em>This is </em>exactly<em> the sort of thing that got you pulled out of the field and shunted further and further to the back of the office</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Shut up.</em>
</p>
<p><em>You know I’m right. Remember Nott? You don’t even </em>like<em> him.</em></p>
<p><em>Shut up. It’s not about whether </em>I like<em> someone. It’s about whether it the right thing to do—</em></p>
<p>See?<em> That’s exactly why you’re left killing time doing nothing in an office, across from Terry </em>Boot<em> of all people.</em></p>
<p><em>It’s not my fault, I</em>…</p>
<p>Harry realized he was still pacing Malfoy’s sitting room, chewing that hangnail down to near painful.</p>
<p>He stopped at the kitchen doorway and noticed the empty glasses and dessert plates on the kitchen table. Probably Malfoy would get testy with him when he noticed that Harry had done the washing up again, but Harry had long ago gotten used to annoying Malfoy with everything he did and he needed something to occupy himself with that wasn’t pace and find new places on his fingernails to bite.</p>
<p>He washed them by hand to kill a few more minutes and was drying the last glass and putting it away when he heard Malfoy’s bedroom door open.</p>
<p>“Where the fuck did you go, Potter?”</p>
<p>“I was washing your dishes.”</p>
<p>“I did <em>not</em> ask you to do that.”</p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” Harry replied, coming back out of the kitchen. “Not much of a morning person either, are you?”</p>
<p>Malfoy made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a grumble.</p>
<p>Harry looked at Malfoy and then away for a moment to remind himself that he’d made a promise for his own sanity that he wasn’t to <em>look</em> at Malfoy when he looked at him.</p>
<p>Malfoy was in jeans again, this time with a close-fitting V-neck blue jumper that looked so invitingly soft to the touch. His hair was still damp from towel-drying and he was pulling most of it back with practiced ease, before combing his fingers down the shorter loose strands framing his face, making sure they were arranged to his liking.</p>
<p>Who on earth had allowed that weedy uptight Slytherin to grow up into <em>this</em>?</p>
<p>“I really do have to go to work now,” Malfoy said, but didn’t make a move to put his coat on. He stood against the bedroom doorframe, one thumb hooked through a belt loop, watching Harry look at him.</p>
<p>He raised his eyebrows at Harry.</p>
<p>“Right,” Harry said, his brain catching up to what Malfoy had just said. “Right. And I have to get back to London. If you’re really <em>certain</em> of this”—he held up the two packets—“then I want to get back by tomorrow morning. I don’t want to leave too much <em>time</em>; I worry what might happen if—”</p>
<p>“If they have a chance to realize what’s happening and that it’s going against their plan?” Malfoy nodded. “Well, walk me to work, then.” He crossed over to the hooks by his door and shrugged his coat on, then tossed Harry’s coat to him.</p>
<p>Harry caught it neatly and began to put it on, then looked at Malfoy, poised to open his front door. “Hang on, you don’t want your hat?”</p>
<p>“My hair’s still <em>drying</em>, Potter.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the utter vain <em>Malfoyness</em> of that logic, going out into the chill early morning of Maine in January damp-haired and bare-headed to avoid messing up his hair.</p>
<p>“And nobody ever told you that this is how you catch cold?” Harry grinned as he finished buttoning his own coat.</p>
<p>“What are you, my nanny?” Malfoy grumbled back, resenting the fact that Potter had the gall to be so damned charming. And at <em>this</em> godforsaken sunrise hour, nonetheless.</p>
<p><em>The absolute nerve</em>.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry told him in a tone of teasing seriousness, and pulled his wand from his coat pocket to cast a warming charm on himself and then Malfoy.</p>
<p>Malfoy glared at him.</p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” Harry said cheerfully, just to goad Malfoy a bit more.</p>
<p>“Don’t pretend to be so chipper at the crack of dawn,” Malfoy advised him. “You’re not fooling either of us.”</p>
<p>They stepped out together into the cold morning stillness, with the hint of dawn just beginning in the pale blue light creeping up the edge of the horizon.</p>
<p>“I need to fly back by airplane,” Harry said, as they walked up the flagstones from the front door to the gate.</p>
<p>“<em>Airplane</em>?”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. I’ll get some sleep on the flight, so I just need to get back in time for it to look like I’m not too suspiciously late for work tomorrow. And Boot knows where I am, so if they have to, they’ll cover for me for at least a little while until I get there. Merlin knows I’ve done the same for them enough times for far less important reasons.”</p>
<p>“Hung over?” Malfoy guessed. And then continued, “No, it wasn’t because of the timing of getting back by plane; I was just surprised that the savior of the wizarding world came by <em>airplane</em> like an ordinary <em>Muggle</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry shot Malfoy a look. “Don’t <em>you</em> sound so disdainful of Muggles.”</p>
<p>“Oh, believe me, Potter, <em>they</em> aren’t what I was disdaining.”</p>
<p>As they turned onto Agamenticus Road and walked past the yards with their sleeping houses, all still shut up dark, Harry said, “You know you can cut it out with all that Boy-Who-Lived ridicule. It’s gotten pretty old.”</p>
<p>Malfoy smirked a little. “Only for one of us. I expect I’ll get amusement out of it for <em>years</em> more.”</p>
<p>“Oh? Planning on staying in touch with me that long?”</p>
<p>That only threw Malfoy off-guard for a moment before he said drily, “I’ll put you on my Christmas card list.” He arched an eyebrow at Harry. “That is, of course, unless you’re one of those people who sends out an overly perky impersonal printout newsletter of all the <em>fun</em> and <em>exciting</em> things your family’s done in the last year, like the one Tony’s sister sends him every Christmas, telling everyone about the meaningless championship her kid’s stupid travel soccer team won and the promotion her boring husband got at his boring office.” Malfoy rolled his eyes. “You know: ‘Oh, look at us, being so normal and heterosexual. Our suburb gave us the Best Mowed Lawn trophy and the Applebee’s down the street named us their Family of the Year.’”</p>
<p>Harry raised his eyebrows at that.</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed heavily. “She doesn’t talk to him otherwise,” he explained. “She and Tony’s brother said they didn’t want to get involved in the schism between Tony and his parents. So them not choosing sides came out looking <em>remarkably</em> like choosing their parents.”</p>
<p>“There was a schism between Tony and his parents?” Harry asked. “Why?”</p>
<p>In response, Malfoy favored him with his most withering look. “Why do you <em>think</em>, Potter.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Right, of course.”</p>
<p>“He didn’t come out to them until Merv,” Malfoy said. “But to hear him tell it, falling for Merv was unavoidable. They met by chance at Mainestreet, the club we passed downtown, when they were both on vacation here. Tony was nursing a beer alone and trying to work up the nerve to talk to literally <em>anyone</em>, and Merv was doing 'Shadows of the Night' in the amateur drag contest that was on that night. They were long-distance friends for about a year after that, in emails and late-night phone calls, but they were never <em>dating</em>. Until they were.” Malfoy smiled a little at the familiar beats of a story he’d heard so many times by now. “And then it was everything all at once about six years ago now: they realized they’d been hopelessly smitten with each other since the night they met, so Tony told his family, Merv moved to Maine to be with him, and they bought an old diner that needed plenty of work before it could even open.” Malfoy curled one of the loose strands of hair around his finger and let it go. “Tony says he knew he loved Merv for keeps when they first went to look at the place and he told Merv they had to move the booths, even though that would cost money, even though it would mean there would be one less table in the place. And Merv agreed immediately without arguing or needing to ask.”</p>
<p>“Move the booths?” Harry repeated, puzzled.</p>
<p>“To make more room between the booth and the table. Tony wasn’t going to own a diner where he wouldn’t be able to eat as a guest.”</p>
<p>It took Harry a couple moments to piece that together. When he did, he felt a pang of guilt at his own obliviousness, at that consideration never even occurring to him, despite all the times he’d been out with Dudley and Neville.</p>
<p>“Opening the Breakfast wasn’t taking a <em>complete</em> wild chance,” Malfoy continued. “Merv went to culinary school and had been working for years in some white tablecloth French restaurant in Manhattan that he hated, while Tony had been running the business side of his father’s boat repair almost since he had graduated high school.” Malfoy was aware he was probably saying too much and making it far too clear how much he cared about Merv and Tony. He hoped that Harry couldn’t tell just from his tone of voice the way he held onto their how-we-met, retelling it to himself over and over with the careful reverence of someone in awe of being allowed his part in something like what they had. “And then they hired me a couple years later. I’ll have been there for four years come this summer.”</p>
<p>“I wish I could like what I did the way you care about being a barista at this diner.”</p>
<p>“Christ, don’t you dare develop a fondness for <em>your</em> job. You’re better than <em>that</em>, Potter.” Malfoy gave Harry a wry look. “Anyway, I’m not sure I’m technically the barista anymore,” he added. “I just sometimes still call myself that, because it simplifies things. I started with that job, sure, as the summer hire a few years back. But I do pretty much everything by now. I don’t even know if I have a title anymore. There’s just Merv and Tony, and then there’s me, third in command after them.”</p>
<p>“There <em>are</em> more than the three of you working there, right?” Harry asked. “Because if not, being third in command sounds a little pointless.”</p>
<p>“No, <em>obviously</em> there are other employees. It was just so dead yesterday that we sent them—”</p>
<p>Harry laughed. “I know, I know. I was just giving you a hard time.” And then he did that thing again, softly knocking his arm against Malfoy’s, just a quick amiable bump of coat sleeve against coat sleeve.</p>
<p>Malfoy smiled a little despite himself at that little gesture of familiarity, before it clicked for him exactly how close that meant he may have let Harry start to get. He quelled two very different reactions to the realization. One was to firmly move Harry an arm’s length apart.</p>
<p>The other wasn’t.</p>
<p>He shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets.</p>
<p>“What about the two old men?” Harry asked. “Are they also… ?”</p>
<p>“Gay?” Malfoy supplied archly. “Don’t be shy; you can say it.” He smirked at the way Harry flushed and ducked his head in an abashed gesture of apology. He tried not to find that endearing. “Yes. Bud and Gene. Gene’s sixty-five, Bud’s seventy-nine, and they’ve been together <em>since 1963</em>, if you can even imagine. It <em>almost</em> convinces one to believe in love.”</p>
<p>“Aha, there it is. The old Malfoy cynicism. For a second there, I almost believed you’d learned to have a sentimental side.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I would <em>never</em> do such a thing. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, after all.”</p>
<p>They were turning up Main Street now, the first pinks and golds of sunrise burnishing the sky off to their left.</p>
<p>“The Beauxbatons guy whose wand you stole,” Harry said. “Was he the ex you mentioned last night?”</p>
<p>“One: I did not steal the wand. I borrowed it without asking, and he got it back.” Draco paused. “In hindsight, perhaps I should have hidden it and kept it hostage to make him stick around to help me while I was—as it turns out—not <em>actually</em> dying after all. But I gave it back and he was”—Malfoy tried to snap his fingers in his gloves and made a flitting gesture through the air—“out like a flash as soon as he saw how bad things looked for me. But, no, that was just someone with whom I made a series of mistakes in Bayonne. Chief among them being willing to give the time of day to a person who was interested in me because I was <em>Draco Malfoy</em>.” Draco sighed. “But I learned better. I’ll never make <em>that</em> mistake again.” He was quiet a moment, rubbing the end of his thumb along his bottom lip, looking away from Harry. “No, Potter, it would have been hard for someone I only knew for a couple days back in France to be able to provide the kind of sterling insights I mentioned last night about a bitchy diner employee who’s let himself go.”</p>
<p>“So who <em>was</em> this absolute tosser?” Harry asked. “Or I could start guessing. Let me see… His name was Robert and he was trying to start an Oasis cover band. His name was, I dunno, Ethan and he was a football player—American football, not real football—and he had—”</p>
<p>Malfoy was grimacing. “A <em>football</em> player? Is that what you seriously think of me, Potter?”</p>
<p>“Well, you tell <em>me</em>, then. I don’t know your type.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, you’re nosy.” Malfoy rubbed a gloved hand over his eyes and looked up at the sky with a wide-eyed <em>why me?</em> resignation. “All right, fine. His name was Dale, and he worked in advertising in Boston, about an hour and a half down the coast. He was as tall and handsome as a model in a luxury watch ad. He had style and class, he had a Harvard degree, he had tailored suits and designer jeans and impeccable taste. All this preppy gorgeous New England charm, like I’d ordered the most expensive boyfriend straight out of a Ralph Lauren catalog.” Malfoy made a face, closing his eyes and wrinkling his nose in retrospective chagrin. “He was perfect. I mean. He was kind of an asshole, of course, but so am I. So in that way, he was also perfect for <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry wanted to say something in sympathy, but couldn’t quite think what. He knew that if he had been asked to imagine the sort of bloke Draco Malfoy would go for, it would be someone like this: Some rich white boy with an elitist streak a mile wide and an arrogance to rival Malfoy’s own. Someone who would take the same sort of haughty pleasure Malfoy did out of looking down on everyone else with cool smug noblesse.</p>
<p>Malfoy looked at Harry with a small knowing smile. “Don’t try to tell me I’m not an asshole. You’re too terrible a liar to pull off a fib <em>that</em> obvious.”</p>
<p>“What if I say that you’re the kind of arsehole who deserves someone less shit than someone who says things like that about his own boyfriend?”</p>
<p>“Mmm, I don’t know. Death Eater, remember? In the grand scale of things, I think that tips things farther against <em>me</em> than most others’ flaws.”</p>
<p>“I’m trying to be <em>sympathetic</em>, you impossible git.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes, I’m really feeling the sympathy here, thank you ever so.” Malfoy shook his head with a glare that looked more fond than annoyed. “Anyway, I feel it really ought to be self-explanatory from there.”</p>
<p>“You dumped him because <em>you</em> may be an impossible git, but <em>he</em> was an absolute bastard?”</p>
<p>“Don’t be thick, Potter. He dumped me because I wasn’t actually the status symbol he thought he could make me. Even though I had all the right pieces for that, at least in the beginning. <em>That</em> person had all the potential to live up to that, but I had to go off and decide I’d rather start learning to be <em>this</em> person instead.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Why did I want to be Alfie who works in an old diner in Maine instead of Alfred who had vague trust fund money that seemed to give my unemployment an air of idle rich European aristocracy?” Malfoy raised his eyebrows at Harry. “Surprisingly, it wasn’t because the bank account was running low. <em>They</em> had all the Malfoy family assets, of course, but I’d been siphoning enough off into a side account in a Muggle bank since second year, in case things went sideways for me someday. Which included all the money meant for me from the Black side of the family. So I was living in New York when I met Dale, trying desperately to be the sort of person who, well… the sort of person who <em>wants</em> to live in New York. I had this postage stamp of an apartment on the Upper East Side—because of course I did—with beautiful crown molding, no closets, and a truly <em>astronomical</em> monthly rent. And I was miserable there, but didn’t figure out why until we took a long romantic getaway weekend up to Maine. Which I planned, because we decided that I was the romantic one in the relationship. <em>That</em> really ought to tell you everything you need to know right there.”</p>
<p>They were on Shore Road now, standing in front of The Front Porch, its interior dark and quiet in the early morning.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Malfoy said, “I just decided then that this is where I wanted to be.” He looked off in the direction of the sea and sunrise and then back to Harry. “You know where I grew up, in that huge estate with its endless grounds and gardens, all deep in miles of countryside. And then Hogwarts was more of the same, with just one little village down the road. Growing up, my whole experience with cities had been on heavily sheltered trips to London and Paris for only a few days at a time here and there, chaperoned so closely by my parents. And then the time I spent at my mother’s in Paris after Azkaban, but… But I can hardly count that; the less said there, the better.” Malfoy waved that off and continued, “I thought New York City would be the place I belonged when I came here: all those people, all that culture, all those things I was supposed to want to see and do. Especially after those three years of seeing no people, and nothing to see but the same blank cell, with nothing to do but kill time waiting to get out.”</p>
<p>“But you were wrong? About wanting to be in a city?”</p>
<p>Malfoy chuckled in the affirmative. “How do you like <em>that</em>, Potter? Get a kick out of that if you’d like: I can play at urbane sophistication all I want; I know all the rules of etiquette drilled into me as a child; I can order in French and know the difference between a fish fork, an oyster fork, and a terrapin fork—<em>and</em> how to properly use them—but I can’t live in a city without feeling like I might scream.”</p>
<p>“You make it sound like I’m supposed to laugh at you for not wanting to live in New York,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Malfoy appraised him thoughtfully. “I keep forgetting that we didn’t actually know each other that well, back in school. You never got to hear my stupid teenage ‘someday maybe I’ll run away to the city’ speech.”</p>
<p>“I think I knew you pretty well, Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“Just because you had my number better than anyone else did doesn’t mean you <em>knew</em> me, Potter,” Malfoy replied. “Anyway, I <em>do</em> rather like New York. In small doses. In short trips with Merv and sometimes Tony, out to visit Merv’s parents. Or maybe I just like Queens.”</p>
<p>He didn’t want to admit knowing that what he <em>actually</em> liked was the vicarious feeling of having parents and a home to go back to and visit. He liked the way Merv’s parents treated him like family because their son did; he liked Merv’s father dragging him to the old kosher deli he’d been going to his whole life (<em>been open since 1934, Alfie; not only is this a historical landmark, it’s also the best pastrami in the borough and you can quote me on that</em>); he liked Merv’s mother hugging him like he meant something and always saying the same things to him over dinner (<em>here, have some more, I can’t have you waste away from hunger, can I</em>) even now, when he was clearly getting pretty far from any risk of wasting away.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat. “So when did Dale—? I mean, when did that end?”</p>
<p>Malfoy laughed. “Two years ago,” he said. “Which is why I had hoped not to bring it up, because that’s really nothing in comparison to <em>your</em> brand-new, fresh, shiny, months-old divorce. But you asked, so…” Shaking his head and gesturing around at the buildings along the road, Malfoy mused, “I still can’t believe he put up with <em>all this</em> for as long as he did. We were together two and a half years; he ended it about a year and a half after I came here. It’s all right, I’m over it, which is good, because I really fucking <em>ought</em> to be by <em>now</em>. But that’s it, all presented for your listening pleasure, the story of the only person I’ve ever really had as my <em>own</em>.” He pushed the sleeve of his coat back just enough to look at his watch. “A-a-and I’m definitely about to make a fashionably late entrance.”</p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be. Just tell me that you were riveted by the very mundane story you just made me tell you.”</p>
<p>“I was on the edge of my seat the whole time,” Harry assured him. “Should we keep walking?”</p>
<p>Malfoy shook his head. “Let’s part ways here. I was going to invite you into the diner for breakfast, but it occurs to me that if they were to know you walked me to work early in the morning, it would kick off a <em>very</em> misguided rumor mill within seconds. Also, I should probably stop defaulting to ‘give them food’ as my go-to for what to do with people, lest I turn into Merv.”</p>
<p>“So this is it, then?”</p>
<p>“Is there anything <em>else</em> you need from me?”</p>
<p>“No, I’ve got your letter and everything.” Harry touched the front of his coat, where they had been slipped safely into the inner pocket. “I think I can figure it out from here.”</p>
<p>“You had better. Don’t fuck this up, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I won’t,” Harry said. “I <em>promised</em> I wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“I’m not going back to prison.”</p>
<p>“I promised you wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>They looked at each other for a long uncertain moment.</p>
<p>There was no guide on how to say goodbye to someone under these circumstances.</p>
<p>“Well,” Malfoy said, his voice remarkably calm and nonchalant, “keep me posted on how all this goes down.” Then on the brave impulse of someone who might have little to lose with someone he may never see again anyway, Malfoy dug a ballpoint pen out of his coat pocket and took Harry’s right hand and wrote his phone number on the back, large, over <em>I must not tell lies</em>. And then he winked at Harry and started to turn away.</p>
<p>“Wait,” Harry said. He reached forward to grasp Malfoy’s wrist.</p>
<p>Malfoy turned back, the look in his eyes both hopeful and guarded. He didn’t speak or step closer. He just waited.</p>
<p>
  <em>Let the one with courage to spare make the first move.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>If he even still wants to.</em>
</p>
<p>Harry searched the cool inscrutable labyrinth of Malfoy’s face but could not find what he was looking for.</p>
<p>The thing he was looking for scared him.</p>
<p>And yet still he was crestfallen not to find it.</p>
<p>He let go of Malfoy’s wrist.</p>
<p>Pulling out his wand, he undid the warming spell he’d put on Malfoy, not wanting to send him into work with its faint blushing sheen shimmering in the air around him.</p>
<p>“Malfoy,” Harry told him. “Don’t worry. This will all work out in the end.”</p>
<p>At that, Malfoy favored Harry with an expression that was not quite a smile and not quite a frown, something bittersweet and bemused, something with affection and pity and a specific sweet scornful sadness that Harry had only ever seen in glimpses, when Malfoy thought nobody was watching him.</p>
<p>“Oh, you beautiful Gryffindor idiot,” Malfoy replied. “You only say that because for you, it always has.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at beginning of the chapter from "Calling Old Friends" by Defiance, Ohio.</p>
<p>And this is why the "very slow burn" tag: Because I'm about to have to separate them geographically again for a second.</p>
<p>Hope y'all are enjoying! Let me know what you think! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Nine</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Son, you are no island</em><br/>
<em>You don’t get to choose what stays and goes</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Head Auror Antiphon Abernathy was fifty-two years old. He was six-foot-three-inches tall, with broad shoulders and a wide square jaw. He spoke the Queen’s English and cultivated a leonine head of auburn hair with a distinguished gray at the temples. He had impeccable posture and a piercing gaze so practiced that Harry sometimes wondered if he rehearsed it in the mirror every morning before coming into the office.</p>
<p>That gaze was fixed on Harry right now. Abernathy sat at his desk, hands folded in front of him. On the leather blotter, two things were laid out, carefully centered side by side: One was the parcel of Ministry parchment with Malfoy’s edits. The other was the letter he had written to the Head Auror, Malfoy’s impeccable script flowing across three pages of unlined cream paper.</p>
<p>Abernathy unfolded his hands and spread his palms open to gesture at them. “Do you find this acceptable, Potter?” he asked.</p>
<p>Harry sat in one of the chairs across the Head Auror’s desk. They were high enough that Harry’s feet felt like they barely met the floor and were constructed with their backs so straight that he was forced to sit at attention. The whole thing made him uncomfortable, like he was half soldier and half child waiting for punishment.</p>
<p>“In what sense, sir?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Don’t get smart with me. You haven’t earned the goodwill for that.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t being smart. I just wasn’t sure if you were referring to Draco Malfoy’s response to our request, or to my role in the matter.”</p>
<p>Abernathy’s mouth tightened to a wide straight line across his face. “I was referring to everything about this situation,” he said. “And it was not a request.”</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “Pardon me, sir, but I had been led to believe that we weren’t legally in a position to <em>order</em> Malfoy to relinquish his property, as there is not currently any new suspicion of illegal activity on the estate grounds, nor in relation to the other possessions outlined in our contract.” He took a deep breath, reminding himself that he had promised to do this calmly, without losing his temper at his superior. “Therefore, I did precisely what I’m sure you would have advised and <em>asked</em> for his cooperation.”</p>
<p>“And you are aware of the content of this letter, as well as his written addendums to the official paperwork?”</p>
<p>“Not precisely, sir. As you may have noticed, they were sealed specifically for you.”</p>
<p>“So you left official Ministry documents unattended in the hands of a Death Eater?”</p>
<p>“I assume the Department has duplicate copies,” Harry replied calmly. “It would be pretty foolish of us not to. And as someone <em>very</em> familiar with our paperwork regulations, I also know we’re <em>required</em> to have a backup copy on file of all departmental documents.”</p>
<p>“That’s not the point. The point is: Don’t you think you were <em>excessively</em> accommodating to Draco Malfoy?”</p>
<p>“No, sir. I don’t.”</p>
<p>Harry could see a muscle working tightly in Abernathy’s jaw. He knew the wise move would be to pull back a notch and treat him with a little more deference.</p>
<p>Instead, Harry pressed, “What <em>did</em> Malfoy write, sir?”</p>
<p>“He outlined several solutions he was willing to entertain, none of which were the one choice he’s being offered.”</p>
<p>“That seems like a reasonable attempt at negotiation, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>“No, Potter, you know <em>damned well</em> that it’s no such thing. It’s impudence and noncompliance, pure and simple.”</p>
<p>“<em>Perhaps</em>,” Harry replied, “it’s a chance for us to compromise in an untenable situation. Sir.”</p>
<p>Abernathy refolded his hands, clasping his knuckles together, hard. “Who gave you this assignment?”</p>
<p>“The Minister’s office recommended me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I see. The Granger girl. Of course.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes flashed and he tilted his chin up defensively. “Shacklebolt supports the decision. You can ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”</p>
<p>Abernathy placed his fingertips in the center of Malfoy’s letter, turning it ever-so-slightly into better alignment with the edge of the blotter. “What did you do,” he mused, “go in and politely share a cuppa and biscuits like an old school chum making a social call? As though you had never learned your lesson from your last field assignment.”</p>
<p>“Nothing <em>happened</em> on my last field assignment!”</p>
<p>“You got taken out of the field. I would call that something.” Abernathy raised his eyebrows pointedly. “Or were we not <em>legally in a position</em> to order Nott to relinquish the contraband he was developing?”</p>
<p>Harry clenched his jaw. “Of course we were,” he agreed stiffly. “But he was willing to cooperate. Until McLaggen—”</p>
<p>“Until Auror McLaggen did his damned job instead of making polite small talk with a Death Eater.”</p>
<p>“Nott wasn’t a Death Eater,” Harry shot back. “His father was, <em>yes</em>, but his father’s been in Azkaban since ’98 and Nott was the only one of his year whose father never pressed him into joining up. As you are <em>well</em> <em>aware</em>.” He paused. “<em>Sir</em>.”</p>
<p>“You’re splitting hairs here, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think I am.”</p>
<p>“Theodore Nott <em>was</em> a criminal, was he not?” Abernathy asked, his voice sharp and withering. “And Draco Malfoy”—he readjusted the position of the letter by a degree—“is most <em>certainly</em> a Death Eater in violation of his release. But here you seem to be freely admitting that you treated the situation with just as cavalier an attitude as you treated the Nott raid.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t cavalier with Nott,” Harry retorted. “I was <em>civil</em>.”</p>
<p>“You failed to uphold the Auror Department’s image of—”</p>
<p>“Being bastards people are afraid to trust when they think they’re under suspicion?”</p>
<p>Abernathy took a deep long breath in and out, grasping his hand together again. Harry could almost see his knuckles whiten from the pressure. “Are you <em>suggesting</em>,” he said slowly, “that you believe that dark wizards should not fear being caught?”</p>
<p>“Nott was fucking around with off-market Time Turners and some mildly cursed heirlooms capable of little more than making a nuisance. Malfoy hasn’t owned a wand since he was arrested at seventeen. He works in a diner and lives quietly and would only like to be left alone.” Harry felt his face flush hot with anger. “And most of the people in Knockturn Alley? Most of <em>them</em> were just poor and trying to make a living however they could.”</p>
<p>Abernathy held up Malfoy’s letter, his thick fingers wrinkling the paper. “<em>This</em>? This is not the work of a person asking to be <em>left alone</em>, Potter. This is the work of someone daring us to bring him retribution.”</p>
<p>“He was <em>upset</em>.” Harry clambered to his feet. The chair was not built for standing suddenly with grace, especially for someone a couple inches shy of average height. He put his hands on the edge of Abernathy’s desk and met his eyes with outrage. “It was a bullshit request. It’s not on Draco Malfoy to make our bookkeeping legal. Not when he’s already lost everything to us.”</p>
<p>Abernathy rose, his chair scraping the floor behind him. “Those are the consequences of being a Death Eater,” he declared in a voice like the rumble of thunder. “Those consequences must be borne over a lifetime, Potter. Or don’t you agree that the person who contributed to the deaths of so many on that Second of May should suffer any lasting punishment, <em>especially</em> when that punishment pales in comparison to the pain he caused so many individuals, and caused our entire society as a whole?”</p>
<p>Harry could hear a sort of rushing-pounding in his ears with the fervor of his heartbeat. What Abernathy said sounded almost reasonable; it seemed <em>fair</em> to wish for Malfoy to answer for the things he did; it seemed <em>fair</em> to hold onto the fury and the injustice of those things. But Malfoy’s indignation at being asked to give everything up a second time <em>also</em> seemed fair.</p>
<p>Altogether, it seemed utterly <em>unfair</em> that everything should feel so complicated now. That once again, it should fall to Harry to figure out the right thing to do when there were so many angles to consider, and when careful deliberation had never been his forte.</p>
<p>When the thing that <em>felt</em> right burned strong in his chest in waves of adrenaline and anger.</p>
<p>“What’s the <em>point</em>?” he snapped back at Abernathy. “What good is it doing <em>anyone</em> to have him sign over something the government took a decade ago and hasn’t even <em>touched</em> since it was cleaned? We’ve done what we needed and gotten what we could from the place, haven’t we? Aren’t we just rubbing salt in an old wound for no damned <em>reason</em> here?”</p>
<p>Abernathy’s eyes blazed at him. It occurred to Harry in some dim corner of his mind that so many people would be cowed by that. Most of his fellow Aurors would have snapped into immediate respect and compliance when faced with the formidable figure across the desk.</p>
<p>Harry, however, stood unafraid. This man was far from the most dangerous person he had ever stared down.</p>
<p><em>What can he do? Yell at you? Fire you? You withstood worse than </em>that<em> before you were old enough to read.</em></p>
<p>“You think this is nothing?” Abernathy snapped at him. “You think it’s <em>no big deal</em> to be seen as lenient to Death Eaters? You think it doesn’t send a dangerous message to the enemy to be seen giving in to a Death Eater’s demands? <em>That</em> war may be over, but that doesn’t make the world safe from dark wizards and their ilk. You didn’t somehow rid the world of evil, Potter, and you would be <em>stupid</em> and naïve to think we can let our guard down just because we threw a handful of people in Azkaban <em>ten years ago</em>.”</p>
<p><em>CONSTANT VIGILANCE</em>, an old voice from long ago bellowed in Harry’s head.</p>
<p>“You think there’s no risk in the Auror Department seeming <em>weak</em>?” Abernathy continued, looming so much bigger across the desk. “You think it’s <em>unimportant</em> to seem like an organization to be reckoned with?”</p>
<p>Harry looked up at Abernathy, dauntless and unflinching. “If the Auror Department wanted to do <em>that</em>, sir,” he replied, “then <em>they</em> should have killed Voldemort.”</p>
<p>The next few seconds seemed an hour long, as Abernathy’s eyes widened, and then narrowed. Every line of his body suggested he was using every ounce of restraint to remain standing still and dignified across the desk.</p>
<p>Harry wondered if this was the first time Abernathy had ever wanted to strangle an Auror.</p>
<p>“You’re suspended,” Abernathy told him, each syllable coming out cold and stony. “Turn in your badge and get out.”</p>
<p>Harry knew he was supposed to apologize and plead.</p>
<p>He silently fiddled with the pin on the back of his badge, but it was caught in the fabric of his uniform, so he unbuttoned the robes and shrugged them off.</p>
<p>Standing in front of the Head Auror in slacks and shirt, Harry dropped the armful of fabric in the middle of the desk and walked out.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>He was in the lobby of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement when the reality of the last several minutes hit him.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he said aloud, earning a dirty look from a woman sitting on a bench with her child, who was holding a stack of “<em>Have You Seen This Puffskein?</em>” fliers tight in his hands.</p>
<p>He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his eyes.</p>
<p><em>I really fucked that up. Getting suspended was not the plan. </em>None<em> of that was the plan.</em></p>
<p>He could turn around and walk back into the Auror Department wing to his office and gather his coat. And risk facing down Terry, who would certainly interrogate him while fixing Harry with those big round incisive eyes.</p>
<p>Harry grimaced at the thought. He had already used up all the courage he had for the morning; he could face down Abernathy as much as he needed to, but Terry was a prospect too daunting by far right now.</p>
<p>With a <em>pop</em>, he Apparated to Diagon Alley, appearing on a familiar corner. He pushed open the door of the shop that stood there.</p>
<p>Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was quiet inside, it being early on a Monday just a couple weeks after all the students had returned to Hogwarts after their Christmas hols. The only customers were a few older boys perusing the fireworks without any real urgency to buy anything. In the middle of the sales floor, George was restocking a revolving display of their new trick sweets.</p>
<p>When he heard the door chime as Harry entered, he straightened up, reflexively saying, “Welcome to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, a wonderland of—<em>Blimey</em>, Harry.”</p>
<p>“Hey, George.”</p>
<p>George crossed over to him and looked him over from head to toe. “Call me old-fashioned, but I seem to remember it being the custom to wear a coat in January. You all right there, mate?”</p>
<p>“I, er—I left it at my desk.” Harry shifted from foot to foot, not wanting to go into everything with George, as well as they got on. “It’s not important, I just—Is Ron around?”</p>
<p>“Yep, he ought to be lurking somewhere in the back, pretending to be useful.”</p>
<p>“<em>Pretending</em>?” Ron’s voice replied, as he emerged from the stockroom behind the counter. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been taking bloody inventory all bloody morning, which has been a bloody <em>nightmare</em>, because somehow, my <em>bloody brother can’t bloody alphabetize to save his</em>—Harry! What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Coming to see you?” Harry suggested.</p>
<p>Ron came around the counter and put his hands on Harry’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length and studying him. “You’re not at work,” he said.</p>
<p>Harry laughed hollowly. “Ah, I can see why they wanted to fast track you to detective.”</p>
<p>“And you went out without a coat?” Ron continued, rubbing his hands over Harry’s shoulders and upper arms to warm him. “In <em>this</em> cold?”</p>
<p>George failed to fight back a snicker. “You’re turning into Mum, you know that?” he commented.</p>
<p>Ron rolled his eyes and casually flipped his brother off before turning back to Harry. “Seriously though. What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“Why does something have to be wrong?” Harry replied.</p>
<p>“Because something definitely is,” Ron countered. “I’ve known you <em>how</em> long?”</p>
<p>“About sixteen years?”</p>
<p>“Right. And never <em>once</em> in those sixteen years have you figured out how to have a poker face.” Ron slung an arm around Harry and turned to George. “I’m going on break. For maybe the rest of today.”</p>
<p>George grinned and glanced over at the boys who seemed more and more unlikely to actually buy anything. “What, and abandon me to this crushing horde of eager customers?” he remarked. “Oh, go on then. Have a pint for me.” He glanced at Harry. “Hang on a second, Harry.” He disappeared behind the counter and came back with his coat. “Put this on.”</p>
<p>“I can’t take your <em>coat</em>—”</p>
<p>George tutted fondly while putting the coat on Harry like he was a child. “Harry. I live upstairs from the shop. If I freeze to death on my way home after work, something has gone <em>seriously</em> wrong.”</p>
<p>While Ron was getting his own coat, George studied Harry. “Whatever’s the matter, if you need me to beat someone up, then I’ll—Well, no, I’ll get Charlie to do it. He’s twice as handy in a fistfight as I am.”</p>
<p>“Pretty sure Ron’s also always willing to volunteer to punch someone,” Harry reminded George.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but nobody ever takes him up on it.”</p>
<p>“This isn’t really a punching situation anyway.”</p>
<p>George shrugged. “Worth an offer anyway.”</p>
<p>Ron re-emerged then and grabbed Harry by the hand, pulling him towards the door. “C’mon, mate, I’ve got to get away from the inventory anyway. I’m going half-mad counting things.”</p>
<p>“Have fun!” George called after them. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”</p>
<p>“That leaves plenty of options on the table,” Ron returned, shutting the shop door behind them.</p>
<p>When they were outside, Ron turned to Harry, “Pub?”</p>
<p>“Not the Leaky,” Harry said. “Or any other wizarding pub, really. I can’t… I can’t do <em>that</em> right now.”</p>
<p>Ron frowned. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’m not up on my Muggle establishments, but if you lead the way, I’ll go anywhere you want to be.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry had been diligently filling out paperwork to keep themself from checking the time too much and worrying about what was taking Harry so long to get back from Abernathy’s office.</p>
<p>That morning, they arrived at work early enough to beat Harry there—for possibly the first time ever in their eight months sharing an office—but when Harry arrived, he’d told Terry nothing. He just dropped off his coat on the rack and said he had to go catch Abernathy before the Head Auror got pulled into too many meetings for the morning and Harry lost his chance.</p>
<p>So by the time the sound of someone in the office doorway caught Terry’s attention, they had completed five case completion forms, two file thoroughness control checklists, and a request form for some record picked at random from the Department of Magical Transportation that they planned to deliver personally later that afternoon.</p>
<p>They looked up to see Aurors Hammond and Dubenich standing at the open door into the office. “Can I help you chaps?” they asked. “Bit out of your way, innit, way out here in the hinterlands of the back offices?”</p>
<p>“Just passing through,” Hammond said casually. He had a ruddy nondescript face that could blend into any crowd of ruddy nondescript Englishmen, and he still wore the undercover Muggle clothes he’d been wearing for the East Sussex field investigation, his paper Caffè Nero cup in one hand. He peered at the large green mug Terry held with a shrewd look. “Make your <em>tea</em> strong enough this morning, Boot?”</p>
<p>“Not as strong as I’m sure you’ve made your <em>coffee</em>,” Terry replied, with a conversational nonchalance and an easy smile. They looked from Hammond to Dubenich and back. “Y’know, you shouldn’t throw stones from your glass house with teacher’s pet standing right next to you.”</p>
<p>Dubenich glowered but didn’t argue that description of him.</p>
<p>He was only a few years older than Harry and Terry, having been an eager recruit fresh out of Durmstrang when he thought being an Auror in England might put him on the front lines of a war. It hadn’t, of course, and Terry was personally all too aware of the fact that Dubenich’s stellar academic record on Durmstrang’s <em>particular</em> curriculum was both the reason he was considered a valuable asset and also the reason he had to spend his career proving over and over again his total unwavering loyalty to whoever was giving him orders.</p>
<p>“What’s this about then?” Terry continued. They turned to Dubenich, having decided they was done with Hammond’s smug insinuations. “Don’t tell me you was missing all that time we used to spend together.”</p>
<p>Dubenich shot a pointed look at Hammond. “You shouldn’t speak openly about that,” he warned Terry.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Terry reminded him evenly. “Remember?”</p>
<p>Hammond took a long slow sip from his paper cup. “I only came along ‘cause I wanted to watch you rile up the rentboy,” he said to Dubenich. “No offense,” he added to Terry with a truly impressive measure of insincerity.</p>
<p>“The rentboy?” Terry repeated, eyebrows going up and eyes widening. “Hey, fuck you too, Hammond. No offense.”</p>
<p>With an annoyed sigh, Dubenich pushed Hammond aside and stepped just inside the office. “I didn’t invite Auror Hammond to come,” he clarified, his dislike for Hammond seeming to eclipse his disregard for Terry. “I was merely asked to check whether Auror Potter had been back here after he left the Head Auror’s office, and if so, what he may have said to you.”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head slowly, their guard all the way up now. “No, I didn’t know he was out of his meeting with Abernathy.”</p>
<p>“What do you know about that meeting?” Dubenich asked.</p>
<p>Terry shrugged and shook their head again. “He said he had something he wanted to talk about. He had a bunch of papers, but that ain’t exactly <em>unusual</em>, given his job. Maybe a batch of paperwork he had a question about where to file? Maybe something wrong with some old case records? Search me. Why don’t you go find <em>him</em> and ask?”</p>
<p>“Because he is no longer in the DMLE complex,” Dubenich said.</p>
<p>“He <em>left</em>?”</p>
<p>“Was asked to leave,” Dubenich corrected him. “On the basis of his conduct during his discussion with the Head Auror.”</p>
<p>Terry leaned back in their desk chair and blinked a couple of times, their bright round eyes glinting with steel for just a moment before they put their pleasant polite face back on. “No, can’t help you,” they said. “I can honestly say I have <em>no bloody idea</em> what he did in his meeting.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They got to the Bird in Hand just as it opened, grabbing a table at the back.</p>
<p>Ron bought a basket of chips, a pint of lager for Harry, and a pint of bitter for himself.</p>
<p>“It’s not too early for this?” Harry asked him, holding up his glass.</p>
<p>“It’s afternoon in Berlin or something,” Ron replied. “So close enough.” He settled back in his chair and said, “All right, let’s have it out. What’s going on?”</p>
<p>So Harry told Ron everything from the beginning.</p>
<p>Or almost everything.</p>
<p>He glossed over Hermione’s lunch meetings with Terry. Knowing that Ron had never been overly fond of Terry, Harry didn’t want to inadvertently lay the groundwork for a fight between Ron and Hermione later.</p>
<p>And he didn’t mention the part where he nearly kissed Malfoy. He didn’t mention a <em>lot</em> of details of their visit, painting it in broad strokes and leaving things unsaid out of an odd sense of protectiveness towards Malfoy—and towards himself, if he were to be entirely honest.</p>
<p>Although he wasn’t quite ready yet to admit that there were things he wasn’t able to talk to his own best friend about.</p>
<p>“So I gave everything to Abernathy this morning,” Harry told Ron. “And he made me wait outside his office while he read them.”</p>
<p>“Like you were back in school and about to get detention?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. And then he called me back in, and it did not… go well.”</p>
<p>Ron raised his eyebrows and took a long drink of beer. “So you told the Head Auror to get fucked?”</p>
<p>“Oi, hang on, did I <em>say</em> I did that?”</p>
<p>“No. But I’ve maybe met you in passing and I’m not an idiot.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed into his pint glass. “In my defense, he was being a royal arsehole.”</p>
<p>“Well. Yeah. Because he’s a royal arsehole.”</p>
<p>Harry laughed a little at that. “You <em>did</em> warn me when you quit.”</p>
<p>“And then Neville re-warned you almost three years later when <em>he</em> quit.” Ron rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “But, no, you had to go off and insist on seeing this thing through like the stubborn prat you are.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed. “That’s fair, I s’pose.”</p>
<p>“’Course it is. I’ve met you, remember?” Ron took a handful of chips and pushed the basket across the table to Harry. “So paint me a picture, here. I want to live this experience vicariously through you: What exactly did you say to that self-important fuckwit?”</p>
<p>Harry recounted that morning’s conversation as best he could from memory, taking comfort in the emotions crossing Ron’s face—shock, indignation, sheer pride and joy in Harry.</p>
<p>“—And then, er, I told him that if the Department <em>really</em> wanted to seem like a force to be reckoned with, then maybe <em>they</em> ought to have been the ones to kill Voldemort.”</p>
<p>Ron’s eyes widened and he let out a low whistle, impressed. “<em>And?</em>”</p>
<p>“That’s when Abernathy suspended me.” Harry shrugged. “So I left the DMLE and came to the shop.”</p>
<p>Ron was fighting down a smile in an attempt to look sympathetic. “Look, mate, I don’t know if you want me to tell you that’s a rough deal and I’m really sorry to hear it, but honestly? Congratu-bloody-<em>lations</em> and <em>about damn time</em>.” He held up his pint glass in salute to Harry.</p>
<p>Harry clinked his glass against Ron’s, smiling despite himself. “You make it sound like you’ve been <em>waiting</em> for this.”</p>
<p>“Well, <em>yeah</em>,” Ron replied. “Remember the bit where I said I’ve <em>met</em> you? I sorta figured it was just a matter of time before…” He shrugged and waved a hand like an invitation to fill in the rest of the sentence. “Maybe I didn’t think you would do <em>this thing specifically</em>, but I probably should’ve started a betting pool with ‘Mione or Neville on the <em>when</em> and <em>how</em> of you finally—”</p>
<p>“Wait. Hang on. You’re making it sound like I just quit being an Auror. I’m <em>suspended</em>, mate, I’m not fired; I still have my job.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh. ‘Course.” Ron took a long drink from his glass and set it down. He leaned his folded arms on the tabletop to study Harry. “And how long are you planning on <em>that</em> lasting?”</p>
<p>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</p>
<p>Ron rolled his eyes with exaggerated exasperation and chuckled, the way he did when he thought Harry was being willfully difficult. “Harry. Mate. Come off it, you know what that means.” He shook his head, grinning. “We’ve been watching this whole—<em>thing</em>—play out, for how long now? You’re not getting happier with your job, and you sure as hell aren’t getting <em>better</em> at it.”</p>
<p>“Ouch.”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t an insult.” Ron smiled at him. “I don’t <em>want</em> you getting better at being that; I want you staying the person who’s my best mate. And as it turns out, that person is—I’m not surprised to hear—the sort of bloke who tells off the Head Auror when <em>he’s</em> supposed to be the one getting told off.”</p>
<p>Harry took a long drink from his glass. “Ginny always hoped I’d learn how not to be that sort of bloke. She worried I was going to end up losing my job somehow…”</p>
<p>“Well, <em>that</em> was very optimistic of her to hope for. Could’ve warned her not to expect that to actually <em>happen</em>.”</p>
<p>“I thought you were here to make me feel <em>better</em>.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Ron said, but he was grinning at Harry, warm and brotherly.</p>
<p>Harry grinned back at his best friend. Through everything, Ron had always been the person he could count on loving like family, first and more constant than anyone else.</p>
<p>Ron, who would drop everything to take care of Harry when he saw that Harry might need it, without needing to ask why. Ron, sitting across the table in a hand-knit jumper and worn corduroy slacks with tattered Converse trainers.</p>
<p>Ron was still all gangling limbs, big hands, bony wrists. His face was kind and ordinary, with a long square shape and strong aquiline features, and thick fire-bright orange hair that managed to look on-purpose when he wore it tousled carelessly. He wore his jumper with the sleeves pushed up, exposing pale circular sucker-scars the size of saucers circling up his forearms, their overlapping shapes made all the more stark against the dense layers of freckles underneath. Inside his right wrist, he bore the same stick-and-poke tattoo Harry did on the back of his hand.</p>
<p>George’s was on the left side of his neck.</p>
<p>“So if you’re all congratulations-you-did-it, does that mean that Hermione’s going to be all right with this too?” Harry asked.</p>
<p>Ron let out a surprised laugh. “<em>Gods</em>, no. I’m a free agent in this one, mate, just because I’m dead chuffed that you told Abernathy where to stick it, doesn’t mean ‘Mione’s not going to murder you for it.”</p>
<p>“S’pose I’ve got that to look forward to then. Been awhile since I’ve been murdered.” Harry ran a finger over the beads of condensation on the outside of his empty glass.</p>
<p>“Hang on a second,” Ron said, “I’m getting another round and then I’ve got a couple questions about your trip to America, while you’re still with us unmurdered and all.”</p>
<p>When Ron returned with two fresh pints, he set one in front of Harry and said, “So. Let’s have it. You went off and saw Draco fucking Malfoy and just, like, glossed right over <em>that</em> bit and went straight for the part where you tore the Head Auror a new one. Which, I’m not complaining, mind. That’s a <em>great</em> story. I’m gonna tell it to your grandkids one day. But—” Ron took a drink and wiped the foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “But come on, mate, how is there nothing interesting worth mentioning about <em>Malfoy</em>? Is he still an obnoxious pointy little git? What’s he <em>doing</em>? What’s he <em>like</em> now? Of all our schoolmates whose current lives are a mystery, you have to admit ‘whatever the fuck happened to Malfoy’ is pretty much the top of that list.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t argue Ron’s point there. “Merlin, I wish it were more <em>interesting</em> then,” he said instead. “I think I’m about to disappoint you.” He drank and set his pint glass down. “Draco Malfoy lives in Maine. He has a house. He works in a diner. That’s about the long and short of it, I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>“A diner?” Ron repeated. “He works in a <em>diner</em>? <em>Seriously</em>?”</p>
<p>“Hey, don’t forget, <em>you</em> work in a joke shop,” Harry warned him, trying to quell the defensive undertone in his voice.</p>
<p>“That’s different,” Ron said. “<em>I’m</em> not the one who grew up in a house the size of a small town with all the money and privilege and nepotism in the world at my fingertips.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think being the son of Lucius Malfoy is good for much nepotism these days,” Harry pointed out. “And he's kind of like… I dunno, an assistant manager. So he’s doing all right.”</p>
<p>“Ooh, assistant manager?” Ron repeated, eyes shining. “I stand corrected. He’s really coming up in the world.”</p>
<p>“He’s not bothering anyone anymore.”</p>
<p>Ron looked skeptical. “I find <em>that</em> hard to believe. I remember his whole personality.”</p>
<p>Laughing despite himself, Harry agreed, “All right, fair. He’s still… rather like <em>that</em>, in a lot of ways. I mean, he’s not so cruel and he’s not filled with the kinds of ideals that make someone throw in their lot with the Death Eaters. But he’s still…”</p>
<p>“A right snarky bastard?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Thank Merlin for that, I guess,” Ron said. “Reckon you would’ve been disappointed if he weren’t.”</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “Wait, what?”</p>
<p>“Oh, y’know. Even when it wasn’t all murder and warfare and hate crimes and such, he and you were still always on like: You need me to find you a first year to tutor you in Potions, Potter, or would that be too advanced for you? Too bad your dad can afford to buy you onto the Quidditch team, Malfoy, but can’t buy you any talent—or a better hairstyle. That’s rich, coming from the Boy Who Lived but Never Met a Comb.” Ron chuckled and rolled his eyes. “It’s just I can’t imagine you even knowing how to talk to each other if <em>that</em> was off the table.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Yeah, I s’pose it’s still a lot like that. At least now we’re past all the murder and war and all that.”</p>
<p>“Speak for yourself, mate.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed. “No, you’re right. I don’t mean <em>past</em> all that, like it doesn’t still <em>matter</em>. I just mean… At least Malfoy’s not going to try and kill me <em>now</em>, I guess?” He frowned. “I dunno. That’s not it either. I can’t figure how to make this less complicated, even though he’s doing okay and things went better than they could’ve.”</p>
<p>“It’s Malfoy, mate. It’s <em>always</em> going to be <em>complicated</em> with the Prodigy Junior Death Eater. Our best bet was him staying disappeared, ‘cause it’s hard to be too complicated when you’re not even there.” Ron shook his head thoughtfully. “And that’s really all that’s going on with him? I was ready to hear something shocking and salacious, something I could take back to George tomorrow and go, <em>Guess what I found out about Malfoy</em>. You’re <em>absolutely</em> sure he doesn’t have a secret lovechild? A face tattoo? A motorcycle gang? A successful career in adult film? An <em>unsuccessful</em> career in adult film? The least he could do was become a Juggalo or something.”</p>
<p>“Why on earth do you know what that is,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“I work in a joke shop.”</p>
<p>Harry laughed a little, then pretended to think for a moment. “I think,” he decided, “that Malfoy’s hair is actually wavy. There, how’s that?”</p>
<p>Ron pulled one of the cold nub-ends from the bottom of the empty chip basket and threw it at Harry. “<em>That’s</em> the best you can do? You prat, now you’re just having me on.” He laughed. “No shit, of <em>course</em> it is. He probably singlehandedly kept Sleekeazy’s in business back in school.”</p>
<p>“Is that what it was?”</p>
<p>Ron nodded. “Probably took forever to get ready every morning. ‘Mione told me how long it took her to get that stuff in her hair before Yule Ball.”</p>
<p>“Well, she also had about ten times more hair than he did. Or anyone else did,” Harry pointed out. “I s’pose… I dunno, he also has a piercing in his eyebrow. The left one. Which isn’t near as <em>interesting</em> as a face tattoo, I know, but it’s all I’ve got for you.”</p>
<p>Ron raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “How very punk rock of him.”</p>
<p>“Not really. It’s just this little simple silver thing.” Harry waved his fingers vaguely towards his own eyebrow as if to illustrate. “More pretty than punk rock, really.” He made a face. “No, that’s not—That’s not the word I meant.” Turning his glass around on the tabletop, he added quietly, “I just—I just really hope I didn’t screw it up too bad for him.”</p>
<p>“<em>You’re</em> not the one who wrote the Head Auror a fuck-off letter,” Ron reminded him.</p>
<p>“But still. I promised I’d do my best to make everything go as well as possible, and I think I’ve just done the polar opposite of that.” Harry buried his face in his hands. “Argh. You just want everything to turn as well as possible for him, you know?”</p>
<p>Ron half-shrugged and reached out to clap an affectionate hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Honestly? I most only care about <em>you</em>,” he said. “I’m not sure I give a Thestral’s arse how things turn out for <em>Malfoy</em>, but maybe that’s because I lack moral fiber.” He grinned. “At least, that’s what they suggested to me when I quit my job.”</p>
<p>Uncovering his face, Harry smiled at Ron. “Nah, you’ve got moral fiber,” he promised him. “You quit your job.”</p>
<p>“And you just got yourself suspended.” Ron raised his less-than-half-full second pint to Harry. “Here’s to <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry toasted Ron with the last of his own second pint, and then realized something as he finished the last couple swallows in the glass. He groaned in dismay. “Oh, damn it, I wonder what my suspension’s going to mean for Boot and <em>their</em> job.”</p>
<p>Ron rolled his eyes, unconcerned. “I’m sure they’ll survive just fine without you,” he assured Harry drily.</p>
<p>“They’re not as bad as all that to share an office with.”</p>
<p>Ron raised his eyebrows doubtfully.</p>
<p>“They aren’t,” Harry said. “You get used to them. They’re just very… I dunno. They’re very—how they are. You know what I mean.”</p>
<p>“I believe ‘camp as a row of tents’ is the phrase I remember you using in school,” Ron reminded him.</p>
<p>Harry winced. “I’d forgotten I’d said that.”</p>
<p>Looking over their very first list of Dumbledore’s Army in fifth year, he remembered commenting to Ron and Hermione, <em>Guess we’ve got Terry Boot then. He’s camp as a row of tents, but I guess we’ll take anyone we can get at this point</em>.</p>
<p>Ron was unbothered. “If the shoe fits.” He finished the last of his beer. “Are they still claiming to be in love with Hermione?”</p>
<p>“No,” Harry lied.</p>
<p>Harry had never even been sure whether Ron’s feelings on the matter came from jealousy, or from a notion that Terry Boot must be lying about having had a crush on a <em>girl</em>.</p>
<p>Harry had never asked. He’d never really given it any thought.</p>
<p>It had never seemed to matter before.</p>
<p>He knew now that Terry wouldn’t want to tread anywhere they weren’t wanted; they were just content to make their cheerful complimentary remarks, never really <em>meaning</em> anything by it.</p>
<p>Before, back in school, when all Harry’s loyalties lay entirely with Ron, it hadn’t seemed worth having an opinion on. So now, when a small guilty part of him urged him to speak up, he found that he didn’t have any idea what he was actually supposed to say.</p>
<p>“Thank gods for small miracles then,” Ron said. He sighed and shook at his head at the very idea. Poking at the bits of leftover chips in the paper basket lining, he continued, “I’m still hungry. You hungry? C’mon, let’s go to fucking Nando’s.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>After lunch, Ron and Harry made their way back to Diagon Alley, where they window-shopped Quality Quidditch Supplies until Ron saw the time and said, “Oh, <em>hell</em>. Come on, I’ve got to get home and get dinner in the oven.”</p>
<p>“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” Harry said. “Hermione won’t be home for hours yet, will she?”</p>
<p>“It’s pot roast, Harry,” Ron replied, looping his arm through Harry’s and casually side-alonging him back to the flat Ron and Hermione shared at the less expensive end of Diagon Alley.</p>
<p>The sitting room was dominated by an old brown leather sofa that could easily and comfortably sit five grown people, with a seat deep enough that Harry’s feet dangled off the edge when he sat all the way against the back. It was filled with squashy throw pillows in bright colors, and had a granny square afghan draped over one arm. Molly had crocheted it as a housewarming gift when they’d moved in together not long after Ginny and Harry married.</p>
<p>Harry flopped into the sofa as Ron went to the kitchen.</p>
<p>Harry contented himself with the sensation of being swallowed up by pillows and listening to Ron narrate what he was doing with the pot roast, tossing out an appropriate <em>uh-huh</em> and <em>sounds good</em> as needed, although he wasn’t really paying too much attention. He heard Ron mention a four-hour cook time and a few kinds of veg—carrots, onions, potatoes—but otherwise let the sound of his best friend’s idle chatter wash over him pleasantly in an ambient soundtrack that sounded like home.</p>
<p>If he’d been asked when they were all seventeen, Harry wouldn’t have guessed that Ron would turn out to be someone made happiest by working in his brother’s shop, by stopping home during the day to get dinner in the oven, by becoming the one of the three who could make a roast and keep a flat tidy and mend a shirt and take care of people like Hermione and Harry, who were utterly without a single domestic bone in either of their bodies.</p>
<p>Ron had quit the Aurors when he was just twenty-two, suddenly and for reasons Harry still wasn’t sure he understood. Ron had been the one showing <em>promise</em>; they had been talking about promoting him and moving him up the detective chain.</p>
<p><em>I’m not as clever as they seem to think I am</em>, Ron had said, wry and self-deprecating. <em>Maybe I’m just the only one in the whole place with half an ounce of common sense to spare</em>.</p>
<p>Ron had always taken his practicality for granted as being nothing special, just a basic ability to state the obvious<em>—“there’s no wood,” HONestly</em>—but to Harry, who was all reckless impulse, and Hermione, who often erred farther on the side of book smarts than she did common sense, Ron’s straightforward sensibility sometimes seemed something akin to a superpower.</p>
<p>After a while, Ron stepped into the sitting room just long enough to toss an unopened Strongbow can from the fridge in Harry’s general direction, which Harry caught one-handed.</p>
<p>From the kitchen, Harry heard the metallic rattle of something heavy being set in the oven, and then Ron re-emerged with his own can of cider.</p>
<p>“What if,” Harry asked, “you made the oven hotter? Then couldn’t you just cook it in two hours instead of four?”</p>
<p>Ron shot him a pitying, disappointed look. “Low and slow,” he said, repeating a phrase he’d said a few times from the kitchen.</p>
<p>It still didn’t actually mean anything to Harry, but Harry decided not to ask for an explanation.</p>
<p>Joining Harry on the sofa and putting his feet up on the coffee table, Ron said, “Mario Kart?”</p>
<p>“Mario Kart,” Harry agreed.</p>
<p>Maybe Ron had more in common with his father than he cared to admit, with his enthusiasm for the old Nintendo 64 he’d acquired a while back. Even if he wasn’t very good at it.</p>
<p>Then again, neither was Harry, so the playing field was pretty level between them.</p>
<p>It was hard to say exactly how much time passed from there. They each had one—or two—too many Strongbows as they spun off-road and crashed and only won against the other by being the one to fail less spectacularly.</p>
<p>“They should have like—rubber bumpers—on the sides of all roads to keep the cars in,” Ron announced.</p>
<p>“Real roads or video game roads?”</p>
<p>“Yes. Why not both? Could make a bloody fortune off that idea, I could.”</p>
<p>“That’s not—That’s not how driving <em>works</em>, mate. It’s not like bleeding <em>bowling</em>, where you need to have… what-d’you-call-‘em, <em>gutter bumpers</em>, like.” Harry tried to stop laughing but couldn’t, letting himself tilt into Ron to bury his laughter in Ron’s shoulder. “You don’t just fucking <em>hurl</em> your car down the road in the real world.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>yeah</em>? Seem to remember it being a bit like being hurled about when I drove Dad’s car that once… Hey. Wait. <em>Fuck</em>. Did you just <em>lap</em> me?” Ron raised his arm to loop it over Harry, trapping Harry in the circle of Ron’s arms as Ron tried to jostle Harry off-course and block his view of the screen.</p>
<p>“Release me or I will <em>fucking tickle you</em>, you twat,” Harry informed him.</p>
<p>“Nothing doing,” Ron told him. “You <em>dare</em> tickle me and I’m not gonna let you eat any—whatever in the oven. The hot meat pile.”</p>
<p>“Sounds disgusting.”</p>
<p>“Your <em>face</em> is disgusting. My meat is heavenly.”</p>
<p>“Gross.”</p>
<p>“Wanker! You banana-ed me, you <em>traitor</em>. Why do these cars even come with… spare fruit and veg for your best mate to <em>throw at you ungratitudefully</em>.”</p>
<p>“You are <em>stabbing</em> me in the <em>head</em> with your stupid bony <em>chin</em>—”</p>
<p>The door to the flat opened then and Hermione walked in.</p>
<p>“Aha,” she said, eyebrows raised. “I had… thought this might be where you’d ended up, Harry.”</p>
<p>Harry and Ron disentangled in a panic, dropping their Nintendo controllers like they could bite.</p>
<p>“Hello I love you Harry’s had a rough day you look beautiful,” Ron said in a single stricken breath.</p>
<p>Hermione sighed. She looked at them each with that disappointed look they had become all too familiar with over the years.</p>
<p>Abernathy’s intimidating glare didn’t faze Harry, but <em>this</em> look still made him look immediately at his own hands in his lap and want to stammer out an apology.</p>
<p>“Hermione. Hey,” he said. “I just—I had to see someone and I… My morning. Er. It wasn’t… as good as I’d meant it to be.”</p>
<p>Hermione pursed her lips as she finished taking off her coat and draping it over the armchair by the television. “I know,” she said, reaching into her bag. She pulled out a sheet of distinctive folded lavender paper and held it out to Harry.</p>
<p>He extracted himself from the couch and crossed over to take it from her.</p>
<p>Instead of the usual neat officious lines of most interdepartmental memos, this one just bore the following scrawled over it at an angle:</p>
<p>
  <em>Our boy fucked up and got himself suspended. What now? –TB</em>
</p>
<p>Ron scrambled to his feet to look over Harry’s shoulder. “Narc,” he said. “Anyway, if you’re anyone’s, you’re not <em>Terry’s</em>.”</p>
<p>“Nope, I’m a free agent,” Harry agreed absentmindedly, reading and rereading the short note like it might tell him what he was supposed to say next.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Hermione asked him. “I couldn’t get much more than just ‘Harry was suspended,’ because it seems Abernathy hasn’t said much to anyone yet. He just gave a general impression that you were being disciplined for some kind of insubordination, but nobody’s been told what it was about. Terry put two and two together, of course, but the rest of the department just knows he met with you this morning and then you were gone. Terry said it sounds like nobody but Abernathy knows anything about Malfoy, because they were pretty sure they would have heard about <em>that</em> in the rumor mill that’s started.”</p>
<p>Harry swallowed. “What’s the rumor mill <em>saying</em>?”</p>
<p>“Mostly they assume you picked a bad time and a bad target for losing your temper.”</p>
<p>Harry’s shoulders sagged at that. “Oh. Well. That’s not—That’s not too far off.” He pushed his glasses up his forehead to scrub a hand over his eyes, trying to clear his head, but it remained unhelpfully hazy and slow with cider. “What happened. Well. He knows I got this, er, <em>assignment</em> from the Minister’s office. And he’s not dense; he knew that meant <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>Ron spun to look at him. “Harry, if you get Hermione <em>fired</em> for this, I swear I’m gonna—”</p>
<p>“I thought you were happy for me!”</p>
<p>“I am! I can have more than one feeling! I’m complex!”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to get Hermione fired,” Harry retorted. “I didn’t even—This wasn’t even <em>my</em> idea, I didn’t <em>ask</em> for this. It’s not my fault.”</p>
<p>“Okay, ‘cause someday she’s s’posed to be the best Minister of Magic of the last—dunno—fifty years, no, the whole history of <em>time</em>, but if she gets fired ‘cause you were being <em>you</em> about this…”</p>
<p>Hermione put a hand on Ron’s arm. “Hey, Drunk Ron,” she said, “this is really a conversation I should be having with Drunk Harry, so if you’ll excuse us a minute.” Grabbing Harry by the arm, she pulled him away and into the bedroom.</p>
<p>He sat on the edge of their bed as she shut the door behind them.</p>
<p>“I’d really <em>rather</em> be having this talk with Sober Harry, you know,” she commented, sitting down beside him.</p>
<p>“I’m not <em>that</em> drunk.”</p>
<p>“Still.” She pressed her lips together, in something somewhere between disapproval and sympathy. “Harry. What <em>happened</em>?”</p>
<p>“I told off Abernathy and he didn’t care for it too much.”</p>
<p>“But <em>why</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry flung himself back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling—yellow stars painted on a dark blue background—and heard some bitter voice from inside him reply, “Oh, I dunno, haven’t you <em>heard</em>, maybe ‘cause I have a lousy temper and no impulse control and so I fuck things up. That’s what I <em>do</em>, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I was—Come on, get it together. I don’t have patience for the Harry Potter pity spiral right now.” She stretched out on the bed next to him, reclining on her side, with her head propped up on her elbow to look at him. “And I wasn’t asking what happened in the Head Auror’s office this morning. I was asking what happened in <em>Maine</em>, which <em>led</em> to you losing your temper at the Head Auror in his office this morning.”</p>
<p>Harry turned his head to look at her, trying to figure out how to even begin to answer that question. He wished his brain was working even a little bit quicker, knowing all too well that even at his sharpest, he was always going to be outmatched by Hermione.</p>
<p>She was studying him with the small furrow of concentration that knit itself between her brows whenever she was thinking on something difficult. Her brown hair fell generously around her face and shoulders like a stormcloud or the crash of a waterfall; she had commented once that she figured she <em>needed</em> to keep her hair when she started her career, because it was the most memorable feature she had to identify her.</p>
<p>Harry knew that if Ron was anyone to go by, it was probably one of the two things <em>he</em> particularly noticed. He remembered Ron leaning over to him one late evening when they were trudging through some back corner of countryside at the age of seventeen, and murmuring in quiet wonder, <em>You ever notice how Hermione’s almost entirely hair and hips?</em></p>
<p><em>No</em>, Harry had muttered back. <em>Listen, we’re kind of trying to destroy bits of an evil madman here, and you’re making it weird.</em></p>
<p>“What <em>about</em> Maine?” Harry asked, satisfied with that demonstration of his current rhetorical prowess.</p>
<p>“What <em>happened</em> in Maine, Harry? You’re trying to be evasive, and it’s really, <em>really</em> not working.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy didn’t sign the paperwork.”</p>
<p>“I figured as much. Not much call for you to go off on your superior otherwise.” She sighed and shot him that disappointed look again. “You were supposed to get that taken care of. That was your job.”</p>
<p>“I did what you asked,” Harry said. “I treated Malfoy like a person.”</p>
<p>“But you didn’t get his signature.”</p>
<p>“’Course I didn’t,” Harry snapped back. “’Cause that’s not a thing you force <em>a person</em> to give over.”</p>
<p>“Sometimes <em>people</em> don’t have a choice about everything. Sometimes they have to do things they don’t want to.”</p>
<p>“<em>Fine</em>. Then you should’ve let it be and left it for someone else to do, someone who doesn’t mind forcing people to do those things they don’t want to. I didn’t bloody <em>ask</em> for this. I did the best I could with what I was given, and—and you can’t put it all on <em>me</em> for how it went. Not when it was <em>you</em> who had the big idea to make me do it.”</p>
<p>“Consider all that registered with your other objections,” she said. “You still haven’t answered my question.”</p>
<p>“I dunno what you want me to say.”</p>
<p>“I want to know what happened in Maine.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy also wrote Abernathy a letter. It… I guess it wasn’t very friendly, but it had some other options for what could be done with the Manor. Abernathy was not a fan.” Harry sighed. “He doesn’t actually want that house back. It’s just that it’s not <em>okay</em> to tell someone that their house is <em>theirs</em> after all, but now you’ve got to give it back to <em>us</em>. If it’s still ours, it’s still ours and it’s still something he’s lost. If it’s his, it’s his to have back and not want.”</p>
<p>“Is that what he said?”</p>
<p>“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Harry said. “He doesn’t think it’s a fair thing to pull on him.”</p>
<p>“It isn’t.”</p>
<p>“Is this the part where you tell me life isn’t fair?” Harry asked, turning his head to look at Hermione.</p>
<p>She frowned a little and adjusted how she propped her head up on her elbow to face Harry. “Life <em>isn’t</em> fair, though. In the grand scheme of things—”</p>
<p>“In the grand scheme of things <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>“Nothing really changes. He wasn’t living there, he didn’t <em>think</em> it was his, and he didn’t want it. So he still won’t be living there, he still won’t want it, and it <em>won’t</em> be his.”</p>
<p>“And then we’ve also taken away any trust Malfoy might have had for us. The Aurors, the Ministry for handing them this assignment, all of wizarding Britain for being the sort of place that would be fine with all this.” Harry blinked, putting together the last missing piece of what had been eating away at the middle of him ever since he sat across the desk from Abernathy. “If they follow through, it’s over. Draco Malfoy can’t come back home. Not—Not to the <em>Manor</em>, I don’t mean just <em>that</em>. I mean that all of—all of <em>this</em>—is closed to him. We’re taking away the chance he could have had to think that things might change, that people might forgive, that he might ever be able to step foot in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or anywhere else, his debts repaid.”</p>
<p>“Is <em>that</em> what he wants or—?”</p>
<p>“No, he didn’t say that <em>either</em>.” Harry sat up, a little too fast, and felt dizzy for a moment. “He didn’t—hang on—he wouldn’t have even <em>thought</em> to say that. ‘Cause he doesn’t think he can ever be… He can’t be himself <em>and</em> Draco Malfoy. You know? Nobody here wants to give him the chance to be the first thing; they just want to see the second.”</p>
<p>That small furrow of thought creased between Hermione’s eyebrows as she turned that over in her mind. “The <em>public</em> isn’t demanding he give over his house,” she said. “They don’t have any idea we’re trying to clean up the loose ends of the government’s post-war legal matters. I don’t know what the polls say recently, but I suspect that they largely consider his sentence served.” She paused. “That could possibly be in part because they also think the Ministry owns the Malfoy estate.”</p>
<p>Hermione was looking at him in that way she had, where it was clear that she had already worked through the next several steps in that train of thought, and several others besides, and was just waiting for the other person to catch halfway up.</p>
<p>Harry bit at a hangnail and considered the things Hermione had just said, wishing he felt half as clever as she was, with even the smallest share of her political intuition and gift for considered calculation. Compared to Hermione, everything he thought felt as nuanced and subtle as a direct punch in the face.</p>
<p><em>You have to take care of this quietly</em>, he knew he should say.</p>
<p><em>I understand</em>, he should say.</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ve heard the speeches; I know we need to rebuild trust in the government. I know things are still precarious.</em>
</p>
<p><em>I know how important it is to you that nothing appears to be</em>—</p>
<p>“So this is just to protect the Ministry’s public image,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Don’t be like that, Harry. This is <em>complicated</em> and you make it sound like there’s a right answer that doesn’t come with any downsides.”</p>
<p>“Maybe there should be.”</p>
<p>Hermione gave him a skeptical look. “Maybe there should be some miracle solution that’s all good with no bad parts?” she asked. “That’s not the way the world <em>works</em>.”</p>
<p>They were both sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed now, facing each other. It felt a little like being back in school, hanging out in one of their dorm rooms, which only accentuated how far removed they were from those days:</p>
<p>Harry James Potter, still a little tipsy on cider, in an office-appropriate shirt and tie, divorced father of three, maybe-failed-Auror; Hermione Jean Granger, in a blazer and blouse, up-and-coming figure in politics, fierce and ambitious and to be reckoned with, more married to her job than to her boyfriend of almost nine years; and somewhere on the other side of the door, Ronald Bilius Weasley, trying to hold onto being comfortable and domestic, fighting to be allowed to not amount to much, keeping shop in his brother’s business.</p>
<p>Hermione took one Harry’s hands, holding it firmly in the space between them.</p>
<p>Harry pulled his attention back to her.</p>
<p>“You’ve always tried to make the world work that way,” she said. “The way you want it to, with good and bad being straightforward and easy to tell apart. With bad guys who <em>only</em> do bad and good guys who <em>only</em> do good.”</p>
<p>“I don’t—I dunno if that’s true,” Harry said, knowing full well that it was.</p>
<p>He could still hear Malfoy<em>: And still they sent you back. And back. And back.</em></p>
<p>And himself: <em>Harry Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>They knew.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And you knew too.</em>
</p>
<p>“I think I’m at least pretty open to believing that bad people can do good,” he said.</p>
<p>Hermione nodded. “Such as Theodore Nott?”</p>
<p>“Let’s not talk about <em>that</em>—You know I was the arresting Auror on that one. On all the paperwork. And for testimony at his trial when they finally got around to scheduling one.” <em>And then after that, you punched the wall of your office when he was sentenced and went out drinking with your cousin, because you couldn’t explain your anger to anyone and didn’t want to have to try.</em></p>
<p>Hermione pursed her lips again, giving Harry a pointed look that said a lot of things without her having to say a word.</p>
<p>“I <em>said</em> let’s not… That’s nothing to do with this, anyhow.”</p>
<p>“And such as Draco Malfoy as well then?” she pressed. “You still haven’t said what happened in Maine, you know.”</p>
<p>He sighed loudly. “Argh, Hermione, you don’t give up, do you?”</p>
<p>“Nope. You know that.”</p>
<p>She grinned at him and he chuckled a little in spite of himself, reaching over and tugging at one of the big thick tendrils of hair that had fallen forward over one of her eyes, letting it spring back.</p>
<p>She smacked at him with a laugh, then said, “But really though.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, nothing—nothing earth-shattering or exciting. I think I disappointed Ron by not being able to report back that Malfoy’s joined a biker gang and gotten a face tattoo, or… I dunno. He works in a diner, he has a small house, he… He’s changed.” Harry started to chew on a fingernail distractedly, but stopped at a stern look from Hermione. “<em>That’s</em> what it is, really. That’s what happened. Malfoy’s <em>changed</em>. And that must count for <em>something</em>, mustn’t it?”</p>
<p>“And he wasn’t just playing nice to get you on his side?”</p>
<p>Harry let out a surprised laugh at the very idea. “Oh, <em>gods</em> no. He hasn’t changed <em>that</em> much. He’s still as tetchy a bastard as ever, all vinegar and snark.”</p>
<p>Hermione gave him an odd fond look at that. “Must’ve enjoyed dealing with <em>that</em> again,” she remarked, in a tone that didn’t quite seem like sarcasm.</p>
<p>The bedroom door swung unceremoniously wide open. “Oi, you lot,” Ron said, “dinner’s ready.” He turned to Harry. “She done giving you a dressing down yet?”</p>
<p>“I haven’t been giving him a dressing down,” Hermione said. “We were just talking.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh,” Ron replied, unbelieving. “Right. So you’re telling me you’re <em>not</em> miffed at Harry for being Harry and doing what Harry does and going off-book at an authority figure right when he really oughtn’t?”</p>
<p>“I’m not saying that either,” Hermione said. She shrugged at Harry. “But it’s no good telling you not to do that <em>now</em>, is it?”</p>
<p>Ron came in and flung himself onto the bed between them, throwing one arm around each of them. He pulled Hermione close to give her a loud kiss on the temple and then said, “But really, you two. Dinner’s ready and if you don’t get out here, I’m not bloody waiting for you before I start eating.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry didn’t call Malfoy until later in the evening when he was back home in the sitting room of his own flat.</p>
<p>He had known all day that this was an inevitable obligation, but part of him hoped that if he kept delaying, somehow he’d find a way to get out of the conversation he had been dreading since he stormed out of Abernathy’s office.</p>
<p>And maybe it wasn’t responsible, waiting almost the entire day until after dinner and a few more rounds of Mario Kart with Ron and some more Strongbow, until there was nothing to be done for it: it was time to go home and make a call and face the music.</p>
<p>If he was lucky, he would just get Malfoy’s answerphone.</p>
<p>He was not lucky.</p>
<p>“Hello, Norris residence. Alfred speaking.”</p>
<p>“That’s how you answer the phone?” Harry asked. “What year do you live in? Also you gave me the number to a <em>landline</em>? Again, what <em>year</em>—”</p>
<p>“Charming to hear from you again so soon, Potter.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to make a habit of this.”</p>
<p>“What a relief.” Malfoy paused for a moment. “I assume you have a reason for this call? I hope to God you aren’t <em>that</em> lonely that you’re phoning <em>me</em> for fun.”</p>
<p>“I… Yes.” Harry cleared his throat. “I gave Abernathy your letter.”</p>
<p>“And?”</p>
<p>“And he read it.”</p>
<p>“<em>And?</em>” A heavy sigh. “I’m not playing twenty questions here, Potter. Hurry it up.”</p>
<p>“<em>And</em> he was not a fan,” Harry said. “<em>And</em> he was pretty angry about it. <em>And</em> he was pretty angry with me as well. <em>And</em>… and I might’ve gotten angry back and said a few things to him and gotten myself suspended,” Harry finished, the last bit coming out in a near-mumbled rush as he felt his face get warm with shame.</p>
<p>There was a long silence.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Malfoy said finally, voice flat. “I see. And how precisely did you think that would help the situation?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t,” Harry said. “I wasn’t thinking—”</p>
<p>“You weren’t? <em>There’s</em> a surprise.”</p>
<p>“Listen,” Harry retorted, “I did what you asked me to. I put myself on the line to try to do the decent thing for you, so you could do with showing a <em>little</em> bit of gratitude.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re so right. I’m forever grateful that you got to use me as an excuse to burn a bridge you were dying to light a match to <em>well</em> before you even got to Maine.”</p>
<p>Harry tilted his head against the back of his couch to glare at the ceiling. “Why do you have to be like this?”</p>
<p>“Like <em>what</em>, Potter?”</p>
<p>“A pain in the arse.”</p>
<p>“Because I’m <em>angry</em> at you,” Malfoy shot back, his voice sharp and cold as an icicle.</p>
<p>“Believe me, I’d noticed.”</p>
<p>“Because I <em>trusted</em> you.”</p>
<p>There was a brief loud silence at that admission.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Harry murmured.</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed again, and asked, “What does this mean? What happens now?”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure. I just know that it’s mostly beyond my control now,” Harry said. “You’re out of my hands. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p><em>I still wish you were in my hands</em>, he didn’t say.</p>
<p><em>In every sense possible</em>, he didn’t say.</p>
<p>“Well,” Malfoy said, sounding weary now with defeat. “The next time I hear from you, it had better be with good news. You’re oh for two now, Potter. You owe me.”</p>
<p>He hung up before Harry could say anything more.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Son, You Are No Island" by Torres.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In some ways, this chapter is a short intermission in the lives of our two lead characters before the story leans hard back into the plot.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Ten</strong>
</p><p> </p><p><em>I am healthy, I am whole, but I have poor impulse control</em><br/>
<em>And I want to go home</em><br/>
<em>But I am home</em></p><p> </p><p>Harry woke up a little after nine the next morning, not sure how well he’d actually slept all night.</p><p>All he knew for certain was that he was nursing a mild hangover: not quite bad enough to feel like a full kick in the head, but just bad enough to make his mouth feel dry and remind him maddeningly that all the decisions he’d made the day before might not have been <em>entirely</em> good ones.</p><p>“Fucking Ron,” he muttered, though he knew he couldn’t really blame any of this on Ron.</p><p>He made his way to the kitchen, groggy and half-awake, putting the kettle on from muscle memory alone. He cracked two eggs into a skillet and shoved two slices of the bread in the toaster, pressing the lever down and rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes.</p><p>Which only served to alert him to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, so he went back to his bedside table to find them, muttering to himself that this explained why everything was <em>so damned blurry</em>.</p><p>And he wandered back to the kitchen to watch the coils inside the toaster glow and the small bubbles forming inside the electric kettle until a strong smell like sulphur and burnt rubber yanked him sharply back into the reality of his kitchen.</p><p>Or into<em> a</em> kitchen, with white linoleum floors cold under small bare feet and countertops that came up to his shoulders, and a hard voice barking, <em>He’s burned the eggs again, Petunia</em>.</p><p>Harry’s hand darted forward to jerk the knob off on the front of the stove. The blue gas flame on the hob guttered out and he pulled the skillet off, scraped the burnt eggs into the bin, and put the skillet in the sink, all with a frantic speed that felt like a childlike fear and panic two decades old.</p><p>His hands were shaking.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Draco had finished his morning prep work at the Breakfast and was sitting on Tony’s baking counter in the kitchen—<em>can you not be a health code violation, princess</em>—while Merv worked the flat top.</p><p>He flipped the pancakes—<em>one, two, three</em>—all thick and golden and perfect, then went back to scrambling the eggs he’d cracked with shredded cheese.</p><p><em>The Wild, the Innocent &amp; the E Street Shuffle</em> was playing on a cassette in Merv’s old boom box on a shelf. The music crackled and distorted, maybe from the deterioration of the speakers, or from age of the tape, or a little of both, in a familiar and reassuring way—the hymns of a hundred quiet early mornings in this kitchen.</p><p>Merv slid the pancakes onto the plate in a stack and loaded the eggs beside them. He dropped a generous pat of butter in the center of the top pancake, and glancing over at Draco, he pulled out the whipped cream canister and drew a smiley face around it.</p><p>He slid the plate onto the counter beside Draco with a fork and a syrup pitcher.</p><p>Draco looked down at the face on his pancakes. “Why is my breakfast <em>grinning</em> at me?”</p><p>“A corny and desperate attempt to get you to crack a smile,” Merv said.</p><p>“It’s kind of creepy,” Draco said, as he dissolved its eyes and mouth under a stream of maple syrup.</p><p>Merv sighed and leaned against Tony’s counter beside Draco. “So it didn’t work, so you still have pancakes, don’t complain,” he said. “But come on. What’s wrong with you this morning?”</p><p>Draco shrugged. “I’m not a morning person, remember?”</p><p>“Mmm-hmm. I’m aware of that, believe you me. And I know you haven’t been hooked up to your coffee IV yet, so I’m not expecting full human sentience from you, but still. <em>This</em>”—he gestured broadly at Draco’s whole face—“is a whole ‘nother level of morning unhappy, even for you.” He tucked a strand of hair in a loose curl behind Draco’s ear and asked, “So what is it then? The blues or the mean reds?”</p><p>“I beg your pardon?”</p><p>“‘The blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long,’” Merv recited theatrically, using an accent more proper and enunciated than his usual Queens cadence. “‘You’re just sad, that’s all. But the mean reds are terrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.’”</p><p>“What’s that voice supposed to be? That’s not what you think <em>I</em> sound like, is it?”</p><p>“No, you philistine. My God. That’s Audrey Hepburn. <em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em>. So which one is it?”</p><p>Draco pretended to consider his options. “Well, that description of the blues just sounds like facts,” he said. “Only it’s not raining. It’s just been <em>winter</em> too long.”</p><p><em>Because I’m afraid, yes, but I know </em>exactly<em> what I’m afraid of. And the chance of </em>you<em> finding out what I’m afraid of is part of what scares me.</em></p><p>Merv studied Draco shrewdly. “Have you been using that sun lamp you bought?”</p><p>“Yes,” Draco lied.</p><p>Merv raised his eyebrows pointedly.</p><p>“Sometimes,” Draco amended. “No. I <em>had</em> been, though. Back in, oh, November, part of December.”</p><p>“Did it help?”</p><p>Draco glowered. “Yes,” he admitted. “I think so.” He stabbed his fork through his next bite of pancake. “Oh, don’t give me that I-told-you-so look.”</p><p>“All’s I’m saying is, you bought the thing for a <em>reason</em>. The new meds working out at least?”</p><p>Draco nodded. “Yeah, this one’s better than my last. I sleep better with this one.”</p><p>“Good.” Merv put his arm around Draco and pulled him into a half-hug. He planted a kiss on Draco’s cheek and said, “Do me a favor, kiddo. Keep taking care of you for me. I’m kinda fond of you for some reason.”</p><p>Draco leaned against Merv, resting their heads against each other. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.</p><p>He wished he could say more than that. He wished he could explain how the things that made him angry and scared felt so far beyond his control now.</p><p>Tony came back into the kitchen from putting the day’s pies in the glass case out front. He took one glance at Draco cozied up to Merv, worry knit into his brows, his eyes fixed somewhere on the floor and his thoughts somewhere much, much farther away.</p><p>Merv looked at Tony, who inclined his head in an unspoken question.</p><p>Merv shrugged. “Mmm, hard to say,” he replied. “Might just be, y’know, <em>January</em>.”</p><p>“I dunno,” Tony mused, crossing to lean against his baking counter next to Draco. “We’ve seen Januarys before.” He reached over and cupped one large hand around Draco’s cheek, strong fingers still carrying the calluses of a past life working on boats. Turning Draco’s face to his own, he kissed him with decisive tenderness.</p><p>Merv’s kisses came free and sweet, as easy as breathing.</p><p>Tony’s were earnest and shyly fervent, given with care and purpose.</p><p>This one was long and loving and lingered like the morning light, tasting of maple syrup and butter and sweet potato pie.</p><p>Tony drew back and searched Draco’s face.</p><p>“It could be just January,” Draco said. “Whatever it was that Merv just quoted at me about the blues.”</p><p>“Alfie hasn’t seen <em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em>,” Merv offered, a vague accusing note in his voice as if Tony might be responsible for that oversight.</p><p>“This is my fault?” Tony asked.</p><p>“I don’t like musicals,” Draco reminded Merv for maybe the thousandth time.</p><p>“<em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em>, a <em>musical?</em>” Merv said. “Oh my <em>God</em>.” He turned back to Tony. “It <em>might</em> be your fault. Maybe I would’ve stood a chance at introducing Alfie to a little culture if you hadn’t beat me to it and shown him <em>The Exorcist</em> instead.”</p><p>“<em>The Exorcist</em> is critically acclaimed,” Tony pointed out, stealing Draco’s fork to take a bite of his pancakes. “And <em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em> is racist.”</p><p>Merv opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. “Shit. You win.”</p><p>“Does <em>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</em> have a handsome priest brooding about Jesus?” Draco asked.</p><p>“It has Audrey Hepburn running away to New York and reinventing herself as Holly Golightly,” Merv said.</p><p>Draco cringed slightly. “I’ll pass.”</p><p>“She wears Givenchy and looks fabulous.”</p><p>“I’ll still take the hot tragic priest instead, thanks,” Draco told him.</p><p>Merv sighed. “Probably for the best. <em>The Exorcist</em> doesn’t have Mickey Rooney in it to fuck the whole thing up.”</p><p>Tony had been in a position to see Draco’s face as he reacted to Merv’s offhand description of <em>running away to New York and reinventing herself</em>. He frowned a little at Draco and said, “You’re <em>sure</em> it’s just winter getting you down, princess?”</p><p>Once, not long after Draco started at the Breakfast, he had said something particularly bratty and entitled to Tony early one morning, and Tony had come back, <em>Oh, get over yourself, princess</em>.</p><p>After that, it became a term of endearment Tony deployed in moments like this one, when they both needed reminding how close and familiar the space between them really was.</p><p>“Oh, almost certainly,” Draco assured him, casual and flippant and lying through his teeth. “I can’t think of anything more exciting to blame, I’m afraid.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Harry threw the toast into the bin on top of the eggs and unplugged the kettle.</p><p>He took a long shower, got dressed, and went down to the Caffè Nero on the corner to buy a latte and a scone studded with sultanas.</p><p>Sitting on a bench in the little key garden by his flat with something hot to drink and something to eat, he started to feel sort of human again, and decided to call Ginny to ask when he could see the house she wanted to buy.</p><p>He hinted that his schedule was pretty open this week because he was taking some time off work.</p><p>She hesitated before commenting that one nice thing about the divorce is she’s not responsible for worrying about <em>everything</em> in his life anymore.</p><p>But if he wanted to come this afternoon, they were still staying at the Burrow and he could do her a big favor and save her a Floo trip back to London to pick James up from school, if he could pick James up too.</p><p>He said that sounded just fine to him.</p><p>After he got off the phone, he took a leisurely wander around town, stopping into Gosh! Comics for a picture book about Batman for James and Albus.</p><p>He ended up back at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, where he offered to give a hand with inventory for a little while in repayment for kidnapping half the staff yesterday.</p><p>“Oh, and also for use of your fireplace,” he said. “I said I’d Floo James back to the Burrow this afternoon.”</p><p>“You sure you’re in a state to hang out with Mum and Dad?” Ron asked. “I can just imagine the avalanche of questions you’ll get if she finds out you’re suspended. It was bad enough when I just quit nicely like a normal person.”</p><p>“I didn’t tell Gin I was suspended yet,” Harry said. “So unless <em>you</em> rushed out and told your parents…”</p><p>“<em>Merlin</em>, no. Have a little faith in me, mate.”</p><p>George poked his head into the back room from where he was manning the counter, “Best you didn’t tell Ginny then. She’s not quite learned yet that the best way to have parents is to keep as much from them when you can.”</p><p>Later that afternoon, Harry went to wait for James outside his primary school downtown.</p><p>When James was born, Ginny and Harry had gone several rounds of heated disagreement on what to do about schooling before Hogwarts.</p><p>Molly had homeschooled Ginny and her brothers, teaching them reading and writing and basic maths, all the things they’d need to know how to do before getting to Hogwarts, and Ginny was sure there must be a good way to replicate that with their own children.</p><p>The way, of course, being Molly’s complete willingness to do the same for her grandchildren as she did for her own children.</p><p>Harry, on the other hand, had talked it over at length with Hermione and felt it would make sense go to primary school to get a more thorough education, to get used to being in classrooms and doing schoolwork, to have plenty of experience spending time around other children.</p><p><em>Plus I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that Muggles are some abstract concept</em>, he’d said. <em>Spending their whole childhoods just hearing about them in passing like an alien civilization. That’s not how it should be.</em></p><p>Ginny had come back with,<em> Are you suggesting that my parents raised us </em>badly<em> by not forcing us to go to Muggle school?</em></p><p><em>Well, I’m for sure suggesting that maybe in your father’s line of work, it might have done him some good to actually </em>know<em> a few Muggles at some point in his life.</em></p><p>The school bell rang and children began to pour from the front doors in a laughing chattering crowd.</p><p>Somewhere in the middle of the throng, Harry spotted James in the middle of a cluster of his friends, all of them grinning and talking close. Harry recognized three of them—Connor, Jaskeerat, Paloma—as James’s closest circle. He had taken them to the London Zoo together more than once, and last month before Christmas, ice-skating at the rink in the Tower moat. James went over to their houses to play often, while Harry and Ginny tried to seem like nice, normal, trustworthy adults to the other parents, to make up for the fact that it was impossible to direct a Muggle mother or father to the unfindable house on Grimmauld Place to reciprocate the playtime-hosting duties.</p><p>Like both his parents had always been, James was on the short side for his age. He had his mother’s freckles and his father’s dark curls, though they took a reddish sheen in the sunlight.</p><p>James saw Harry and his face lit up, mouth and eyes wide with joy. He tore away from his friends barreled across the schoolyard, straight into Harry’s arms.</p><p>“<em>Dad!</em>” he yelled, wrapping Harry in a tight hug that left him a bit winded. “Why’re you here? Where’s Mum?”</p><p>“Oof,” Harry said, extracting himself from his son to crouch down and talk to him eye-to-eye. “She’s still at your grandparents’, with Albus and Lily. We’ll go meet her there, and then you’ll take me to see the house you went to this weekend. We’re going to use the fireplace in your uncles’ shop to get there.”</p><p>“Okay,” James said agreeably. “Can Uncle George give me sweets?”</p><p>“Am I capable of preventing that,” Harry replied, smiling. He straightened up and started to walk with James towards Diagon Alley.</p><p>He asked James how school had been and James cheerfully launched into an animated retelling of the entire day, not-very-subtly working in a couple passing references to the pet snake Jaskeerat had gotten three months ago.</p><p>Harry knew that Ginny would never care to have a snake in the house. Understandably, she had never quite warmed to them after the basilisk.</p><p>He wondered how he’d feel about having one in his flat for the kids when they were there.</p><p><em>Plus, it’d be someone for me to talk to</em>, he thought wryly.</p><p>“—and his name is Jim Baxter and he lost a tooth in his sandwich at lunch but found it again and put it in his pocket,” James was saying, having moved onto talking about a new student in his class. “But his name isn’t really Jim. It’s James like me, only Jim is a nickname. I don’t have a nickname.”</p><p>“Would you <em>like</em> a nickname?” Harry asked.</p><p>James considered. “Maybe!”</p><p>“Jim?”</p><p>James giggled, then made a face and shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe how thick his father was being. “No, that’s Jim Baxter’s nickname. I want my <em>own</em> one.”</p><p>“Like what?” Harry asked. “Jamie? Or Mr. Awesome? Or Spider-Man?”</p><p>“Or Laser King!”</p><p>Harry laughed and gave James a squeeze on the shoulder. “Wow, you win. Nothing’s going to beat Laser King.”</p><p>“Do you have a nickname, Dad?”</p><p>“Dad,” Harry said.</p><p>“That’s not a <em>nickname</em>. That’s a <em>other</em> name.”</p><p>“Well, then, I guess I don’t. That’s the coolest name I have, anyway.”</p><p>When they got to Burrow, Molly had been starting dinner and invited Harry to stay, which he politely declined, unable to tell if she’d wanted a yes or a no.</p><p>He only knew he couldn’t take the idea of sitting through a whole dinner with them, pretending everything was as it always had been, while everyone knew it was completely different now and always would be.</p><p>Molly and Arthur hadn’t been <em>unkind</em> to Harry now, but they were always just a little sad and awkward around him now. It wasn’t that they disliked him after the divorce; it was just that he was a failed happy ending.</p><p>Ginny and Harry bundled their two older children into their winter coats and mittens. Lily, still groggy and fussing from her afternoon, stayed behind at the Burrow.</p><p>The house was closer than he’d expected, just a straight path on foot through a field and copse of trees, and then another field, to the hedgerow bordering the back edge of the property.</p><p>They passed through a gap in the hawthorn and emerged in the vast back garden of an old gray stone farmhouse.</p><p>Gazing up at it, Harry understood immediately what this place had that Grimmauld Place didn’t. This was the kind of place that could be made into a real home all one’s own, without any of their personal ghosts haunting the rooms, without the dark shadows of the Black family legacy steeped into its very bones.</p><p>“What do you think?” Ginny asked.</p><p>“It’s nice,” Harry admitted.</p><p>They went up to the back door and Ginny retrieved the key the estate agent left her under a decorative stone.</p><p>The inside was near-perfect for the family, Harry had to admit, with four bedrooms and a big kitchen and a parlor with a big fireplace. It was definitely old and needed work in a lot of places, with dead leaves in some of the empty corners and most of the wallpaper faded and curling up at the seams, but the promise was there.</p><p>“It’s such a good house,” Ginny said. “It just needs a little help here and there. And the price is <em>more</em> than reasonable. The estate agent says it’s because it’s not entirely up-to-date on tech. It’s got electricity and everything, of course, but just landline telephone ports in two rooms and nothing suitable for good internet. Or maybe <em>any</em> internet? I forget. But <em>that’s</em> not very important, especially not for such a good old house for so chea—What are you grinning about?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Harry said, quelling a snicker. “It’s just this whole speech kind of reminds me of how in horror films, there’s always some oblivious white dad who buys a house for his family and cheerfully tells them how old and suspiciously cheap it was, and how much they’ll love it here—”</p><p>“Harry! Are you suggesting that <em>I’m</em> the idiot Muggle dad in this scenario?”</p><p>“No, ‘course not. And he’s not an idiot because he’s a <em>Muggle</em>, he’s just—Never mind. That’s not the point.” Harry sighed. “The house is nice. And not haunted.”</p><p>“I know it’s not.” Ginny gave him a slow headshake that he knew only too well as a gesture of exasperation. “Why can’t you just say <em>that</em>, without all that other stuff?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I <em>do</em> like it, though. I think it’ll be good for the kids, plenty of room, all that outdoors. And I can tell it can be made homey-feeling, not all… <em>austere</em> and stuffy like the other one, no matter what we tried to do to change it.”</p><p>Ginny gave him a sad reassuring smile. “We did our best to make a nice home there, Harry.”</p><p>Harry took a pointed look at the inside of the house around them from where they stood at the railing of the upper landing. “Clearly we didn’t do well enough.”</p><p>Ginny responded with an impatient <em>ugh</em>. “Why do you always have to be like that?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he admitted, far from the first time. Leaning over the railing, he looked down to where Albus and James played in the foyer below with the kite that Albus had insisted on Harry carrying all the way over for him. “Oi, boys, what do you say we take that outside and you try and fly it properly?”</p><p>James jumped to his feet. “<em>Yes!</em>”</p><p>“Like a <em>bird!</em>” Albus agreed.</p><p>They took the children to the wide field out back, so James and Albus could try to fly the dragon kite Charlie had given them for Christmas.</p><p>It was already coming on the gloaming hour before dark. The short winter days seemed to give way to evening so quickly, but they still had a while before it was really time to get back to the Burrow for dinner.</p><p>Harry and Ginny stood near the back hedgerow and watched James give Albus the wooden spool of kite string, making sure he had the wooden handle at each end gripped in his small mittened hands.</p><p>When he was sure his little brother was ready, James took off running with the kite itself.</p><p>“That kite’s not big enough to carry him <em>off</em>, is it?” Ginny asked, with a doubtful expression.</p><p>“No,” Harry assured her. “But I’m also pretty sure it’s the person holding the string who’s supposed to run.”</p><p>“Instead of the person with the kite?”</p><p>Harry nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know. I never learned to fly a kite.”</p><p>Ginny cocked her head to one side, watching as James flung the kite upward as hard as he could, only for it to tumble back down to the ground. “Oh, heck, I don’t know either. I haven’t had a kite since I was a kid, and even then, Fred charmed it to fly around on its own.”</p><p>“Sounds like him.”</p><p>“It was still indoors, of course.”</p><p>“Of course. And the middle of dinner?”</p><p>“Of course.” She smiled faintly at the memory. “It tore on something, and I cried, but Percy took a roll of Spellotape and—” She slipped a sidelong glance at Harry. “I miss him. I miss how it used to be, back then.”</p><p>“Fred? Or Percy?”</p><p>James and Albus had gotten the kite to catch the wind as a gust swooped low enough for them to reach. They whooped with joy, and Albus took off running on his short legs.</p><p>The kite swooped and dipped in a handful of loops, getting lower and lower, before landing once again face-first in the grass, its red and orange streamers fluttering down to settle around the silhouette of the defeated dragon.</p><p>“Both. I suppose.” Ginny said that in a short tone that Harry knew meant she was closing the subject.</p><p>Percy, despite his careful solemn attempts to rebuild bridges, had not yet found a comfortable footing with his family; Harry wondered if the others realized how much it wasn’t something he’d <em>ever</em> had. It wasn’t something they’d ever figured out how to give him. Percy, who was so different from the rest of them. Percy, unable to join them where they were, while they looked out bemused at the long distance to where <em>he</em> was and did not try to meet him there either, in his world of cufflinks and half-windsors, of regulations and discipline, of decorum and private matters.</p><p>Perhaps Ginny especially hadn’t found any new closeness to the one sibling that always seemed out of place and ill at ease with the rest of them.</p><p>She had never quite forgiven the betrayal she’d felt. She never forgot the way he positioned himself in opposition to them.</p><p>She was very slow to forgive disloyalty.</p><p>Albus was holding the kite above his head now while James ran with the string.</p><p>Harry wondered how high a three-year-old could really throw a kite that was bigger than he was.</p><p><em>Almost four</em>, Albus would have corrected him. <em>I’m almost four, Daddy.</em></p><p>James tripped, seemingly over nothing, pitching forward in a tumble through the grass.</p><p>Harry and Ginny both straightened up, eyes on him, ready for the sound of tears.</p><p>But he just sprang back to his feet.</p><p>“He’s an old pro at falling down by now,” Harry commented.</p><p>“Mum says he’ll grow out of it.”</p><p>“She said that about the twins and jokes.”</p><p>Ginny sort of smiled at that. “He wants to play Quidditch someday.”</p><p>“Just like his mum,” Harry said. “On the bright side, there’s very little to trip over in midair.”</p><p>Ginny laughed. “And if he does manage <em>that</em>, hopefully Madam Pomfrey’s not retired yet. You remember how she can deal with a broken arm like it’s nothing.”</p><p>Harry tried to laugh with her, but now it reminded him of things that he didn’t find funny.</p><p>Hearing the way his laugh faded to nothing on the first <em>ha</em>, Ginny turned to look at her ex-husband.</p><p>“You don’t like to talk about Hogwarts,” she said.</p><p>“I don’t know what you mean. I talk about Hogwarts.”</p><p>“Well, all right, but you don’t go back there.”</p><p>He frowned at her in confusion. “Why would I?”</p><p>Ginny shrugged. “Dunno, you could visit Neville.”</p><p>“Do <em>you</em> visit Neville?”</p><p>“That’s not the same thing. He’s not <em>my</em> friend the same way he was yours.”</p><p>“<em>Was</em>?” Harry repeated. “You’re making it sound like you think I don’t care about him anymore.”</p><p>“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” she told him. “I misspoke.”</p><p>“I’ve heard that one before,” Harry muttered.</p><p>Ginny pointed at him. “See, Harry? That right there. That was the problem. You always want to <em>do</em> this, and I—I’m not built for that.”</p><p>“I know, I know. We’ve had this conversation. And I’ve told you so many times that I never <em>mean</em> to be difficult. I never <em>wanted</em> to be—”</p><p>“I know,” Ginny said. “And I’m glad of that, I suppose, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a trait I’ve any patience for.” She studied him with an expression that had long ago become familiar to Harry, half-sympathy and half-irritation. “What <em>you</em> need is someone who doesn’t mind arguing with you all the time, who’ll be happy to rise to it when you goad her—just because you want to bicker over nothing in particular—and then can just let it go after, once you’ve both got it out of your system.”</p><p>“Instead of just holding onto things for as long as… ?” He stopped. He had been about to do it again. “Sorry.”</p><p>“Yes. Well. That’s what I mean about us being too different in those ways for it to work.”</p><p>Harry laughed but it came out a little empty and bitter. “How the hell d’you suggest I find some kind of nutter who actually <em>enjoys</em> arguing with—?”</p><p><em>You beautiful Gryffindor idiot</em>.</p><p>Harry frowned. He knit his brow and looked out at his sons, still laughing and running back and forth with their kite.</p><p>“What is it?” Ginny asked. “You got serious all of a sudden there.”</p><p>Harry shook his head to clear it. “No, sorry, it’s stupid.” She kept her curious gaze steadfast on his face. “Okay. Fine.” He paused, trying to find an angle into his thoughts that didn’t feel dangerous to tread with his ex-wife. “Do you think I’m attractive? Objectively?”</p><p>It wasn’t quite what he’d meant to ask, but it was what had come out of his mouth.</p><p>She let out a surprised puzzled laugh. “<em>What</em>?”</p><p>“Am I attractive? I just… I just wondered.”</p><p>She raised her eyebrows in that arch teasing way he missed. “You don’t think <em>that’s</em> why things didn’t work with us, because I didn’t find you sufficiently handsome?” She was laughing still, incredulous.</p><p>He rolled his eyes at her, cracking his own smile. “Yes. Yes, that’s <em>exactly</em> what I was saying.”</p><p>“What d’you want me to say? Yes, you’re well fit, you utter pillock.” She shoved him in the shoulder jokingly.</p><p>He knocked his shoulder back against hers in kind. “Oi, watch it.”</p><p>For a moment, it felt easy and familiar again; it felt like things were almost as they’d been before. Harry was surprised that the sensation didn’t hurt the way it would have even a month or two ago, when he missed how things used to be so much that it near tore him open sometimes.</p><p>“What’s this about then?” Ginny asked. “As though you haven’t had silly starstruck girls flattering you from every direction since second year.”</p><p>When they were younger, Harry had been taken with the way Ginny considered herself separate from “silly girls.” Now that difficult part of him wanted to mention a certain singing valentine he’d gotten that year.</p><p>“Oh, er, it’s nothing really,” he said. “Just thought of something someone said—I reckon I just remembered it and needed… I dunno, an outside opinion.”</p><p>She tilted her head to the side, her eyes searching his face. “Who said what to you? I’ve never seen you think much of <em>that</em> kind of thing before.”</p><p>“You’re right. It’s nothing; it isn’t important.”</p><p>“And you don’t count all the times <em>I</em> told you I thought you were handsome? You know. <em>Before</em>.”</p><p>“Sure I do,” Harry said. “But now I wanted an objective opinion. You were in love with me when you said it <em>then</em>.”</p><p>He hadn’t meant to say that, not in those words. But if anyone had learned to expect him to stumble clumsily into unintentional hurt, it was Ginny.</p><p>She sighed and shot him a look that conveyed a lack of surprise at the fact that he’d found a way to let her down again.</p><p>“Yeah,” she said. “I was.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning from "Riches and Wonders" by The Mountain Goats.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Eleven</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>God bless the guys from my old neighborhood</em><br/>
<em>Gone past the point where any blessings can do them any good</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At exactly seven o’clock the next evening, Harry was right where he’d been told to wait.</p>
<p>He had gotten the owl late the night before, tapping with a pathetic urgency at his window hours after getting back home from the Burrow. It was one of those scraggly underfed screech owls that came cheap for use from less reputable courier businesses, and delivered a short letter in a familiar messy block lettering:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Harry Luv,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You right bleedin gobshite. We need to talk. Meet me 7 o’clock tomorrow eve at address below. Merlinfuckingknows you ain’t got nothing else to do w/ your time now, and I KNOW you know the place. You’ve been.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Don’t be late.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And so Harry found himself standing right in the middle of Knockturn Alley, in front of the dark boarded-up windows of what used to be Borgin and Burkes.</p>
<p>He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the slick cobblestones at his feet, desperately pleading with any higher power that might listen, asking that nobody notice him and recognize him for who he was. He’d grabbed a knit cap on his way out and tugged it down low over his forehead, as though the rest of his face wasn’t just as easy to recognize from sixteen-plus years of newspaper photos.</p>
<p>Not to mention the last few times he’d been down this street in person.</p>
<p>Knockturn Alley took a juddering uneven path in a long downward slope away from Diagon Alley, winding in sharp tilting angles deeper and deeper into shadow, somewhere deep in London’s deep secret belly. Still, in the shapes of the buildings—in the slate shingles, the leaded windows with thick wavy panes of glass, and in the half-timbered post-and-beam facades—it could have once been a slightly homelier sibling to Diagon Alley. The architecture was very much the same, only one was kept bright and tidy with care and money, while the other had fallen generations ago into seedy decay.</p>
<p>Harry checked the time on his mobile. It was six minutes past.</p>
<p>The building he stood at looked so hollow and empty now, after having been unoccupied for how-many-years. The sign had long ago been stolen, and the brickwork on the front was heavily graffitied with logos for hard wizard rock bands Harry didn’t listen to, and names and tags that meant nothing to him—<em>Mickey was here</em>, the name <em>Eupraxia</em> in an intricate pattern of loops and arrows. And all manner of strongly worded opinions:</p>
<p>
  <em>Fuck fascists.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Down with The State.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Justice 4 O&amp;G.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>AK ALL COPS.</em>
</p>
<p>Some of Knockturn residents had moved out after the district was wiped clean—to <em>where</em> they moved, Harry couldn’t fathom—but many had stayed. Many had nowhere else to go. So there were still plenty of people to pass Harry by on the street.</p>
<p>Some ignored him. Some glanced his way. Some did a quick double-take before hurrying on twice as quick as before, shoulders hunched. Others grabbed the sleeve of the person nearest and whispered urgently into their ear, both of them training their eyes on him in fear or anger.</p>
<p>One old woman spat at his feet.</p>
<p>“The <em>gall</em>,” she muttered, shuffling away.</p>
<p>At a quarter past seven, Terry came sidling up to Harry like they had all the time in the world.</p>
<p>“You’re late,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Terry blinked. “No. I’m not. Got here just as soon as I meant to.”</p>
<p>“You <em>wanted</em> me to have to wait here and… ?”</p>
<p>“Come see it all again? Yes.” Terry turned and looked up at the building they were both standing in front of. They grimaced. “It wasn’t me uncle’s old shop <em>specifically</em> I wanted you to see, of course. I just knew you knew the place.”</p>
<p>“Your uncle,” Harry repeated, not quite sure he’d ever known that before.</p>
<p>Terry nodded absently, still looking up at the building, at one of the forever-shuttered upstairs windows. “Borgin,” they clarified. “Not <em>Burke</em>. Thank Merlin for small blessings, eh?” They cupped their hands around one eye like a telescope and peered into the front window through the gap between two of the odd-angle boards nailed over it. “After he bought off use of me uncle’s cabinet so’s he could try to get someone <em>else</em> to do his dirty work of killing Dumbledore for him,” Terry continued conversationally, “without me knowing a thing about it ‘til it was too late, I reckoned it’d be in me best interest from there on not to let <em>that</em> sort of shite happen right under me nose again. Not if I might be able to learn a little something and help stop a murder or two being done.” They stepped back from the window and turned to Harry. “So that’s why I become what I become for you. A spy. Or a blood traitor. Depends who you ask.”</p>
<p>Harry looked from Terry to the dark space between the window boards. “What were you looking at?”</p>
<p>Terry hesitated. They opened their mouth to reply, but felt the answer catch thickly in their throat like a tangle of clotted hair. It was a sensation they’d learned years ago to recognize, unpleasant as it was, so they could recover quickly with a slight cough.</p>
<p>“Never mind,” they said. “It’s not important. I just don’t come to <em>this</em> place very often if I can help it. C’mon, let’s get moving.”</p>
<p>“Are we going to your place?” Harry asked, falling into step beside Terry.</p>
<p>They nodded. “What, you think I’m going to give you what-for in the middle of the street, like I ain’t never read the policy on not disclosing Department information in a public space?” They shook his head in disbelief. “I ain’t stupid, Harry. <em>I </em>know when and where’s <em>appropriate</em> to go off with all my thoughts.”</p>
<p>Harry cringed.</p>
<p>Terry seemed a little mollified by the guilt on Harry’s face. “Ain’t going home straight, though. Got a stop to make first.” They glanced at Harry and read the sudden wary concern in his eyes. “Oh, for <em>fuck’s</em> sake, give me a <em>little</em> credit here, bruv. I’m bloody livid at you, but that don’t mean I’m planning to throw you to the bloody wolves somewhere. We’re stopping to pick up something to eat, ‘cause I ain’t had dinner yet.”</p>
<p>Halfway up the next block, Terry stopped them at a little building so narrow that it had clearly been built to fill in an alley.</p>
<p>Terry followed Harry’s gaze across the scant width of the façade and said, “Story goes they built it back in the day to stop all the stabbings what happened between The Blind Pig”—they pointed at the grimy drinking hole on the right—“and the brothel.” They pointed at the building to the left, which looked to Harry like an ordinary-if-shabby row house. “They got the best pies and pasties in wizard London though, so it all came out all right for everyone in the end.”</p>
<p>The shop had a small waiting area just inside, with a half-open Dutch door to the kitchen in the back. The air inside was heavy and hot, which was a welcome change from the bone-deep wet cold outside.</p>
<p>Harry breathed in the aromas of beef and rich gravy and buttery pastry crust, and couldn’t fault Terry their assessment of the place. If the food tasted as good as it smelled, it would have the steak and ale pie at the Leaky Cauldron beat by a mile, at the very least.</p>
<p>“Evening, Mrs. Pritchard!” Terry called. “I’m here for me takeaway order!”</p>
<p>“Hang on a tick, love,” came the reply from somewhere in the kitchen. “Just bagging it up right now. Lords, you must be hungry tonight, this is supper enough for two—Oh.”</p>
<p>The woman—Mrs. Pritchard—had come to the doorway and her cheerful tone and expression fell flat when she saw Harry standing beside Terry.</p>
<p>Terry smiled at her as though nothing was amiss. “Harry, this is Mrs. Pritchard,” they said. “She’s a genius with pastry crust and has the heart of a saint and a half.” They turned back to Mrs. Pritchard. “This is Harry Potter, as I’m sure you know. We was at Hogwarts together.”</p>
<p>Under other circumstances, Harry might have resented Terry putting that careful distance on their relationship, making them just people who happened to be in school at the same time a decade ago.</p>
<p>But here, however, he understood.</p>
<p>He had felt his face and ears go warm with panic and guilty embarrassment as soon as he’d heard the name <em>Pritchard</em>.</p>
<p>He remembered <em>that</em> Knockturn raid.</p>
<p>“I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t…”</p>
<p>Harry trailed off. How had he been planning to finish <em>that</em> sentence?</p>
<p>
  <em>I didn’t mean to arrest your sons?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I didn’t know they had a mother?</em>
</p>
<p>She looked at him for a long moment, silently measuring him up in that way it seemed only mothers were able to do.</p>
<p>She looked so much like them. She had the same face, olive-skinned and lightly freckled, with round cheeks and a square chin.</p>
<p>And she also reminded him awfully of Molly Weasley. There was something so similarly plump and maternal about her, though on Mrs. Pritchard, it came more careworn and threadbare, strands of her long gray-streaked black hair coming loose from its bun to stick to her forehead and neck with sweat from the heat of the kitchen.</p>
<p>“You was just doing your job, love,” she said with a tired forgiveness that felt more like condemnation.</p>
<p>“Do you get a chance to see them?” he asked. “Oswald and Graham,” he added, needing her to know he remembered their names, at least.</p>
<p>Needing her to know he wasn’t one of the Aurors who forget their smaller arrests as soon as they’re done, as if those weren’t people worth remembering, just because they weren’t the sort of dark wizard who could earn you official commendations and bragging rights.</p>
<p>Oswald and Graham Pritchard were just small links low on the black market supply chain, making pickups and drop-offs for people more powerful than they would ever be.</p>
<p>Their mother nodded, then turned to Terry. “Graham says you sent him a book when last I visited. Means a lot you ain’t forgotten me boys,” she said. “Bless you for that.”</p>
<p>“I wrote Oz that I <em>wanted</em> to send him something too, but couldn’t think of nothing for him what’d be allowed through security,” Terry replied, grinning.</p>
<p>She chuckled ruefully, shaking her head. “Cheeky,” she chided him. “You oughtn’t even <em>joke</em> like that, not with a copper standing right here. Even one you went to school with.” Ducking out of sight for a moment, she came back with a brown paper bag, already collecting a few dark spots of grease at the bottom. “Here you go, love.”</p>
<p>“Ta,” Terry said, taking it from her. “How much do I owe—?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, don’t. This’un’s on the house, for old time’s sake.” She smiled at Terry in a sad nostalgic way, remembering a way things used to be for Terry that wasn’t a wholly happy one. Turning to Harry, she said, “Take care of yourself, all right? I’d say I hope to see you back, but…”</p>
<p>Harry nodded. “Of course. I understand.”</p>
<p>When they were back outside, Terry muttered in a tone so quiet that Harry almost missed it, “So’s you know, nobody in the neighborhood knows where I work. It’d just about break a few hearts to find out.”</p>
<p>Harry shot them a puzzled glance. “Then why did you decide to go for a job there?”</p>
<p><em>I didn’t</em>, Terry wanted to say, but that caught again in a clump of words not allowed out.</p>
<p><em>It wasn’t me own choice</em>. No, that was off-limits too.</p>
<p><em>Merlin’s balls</em>, Terry thought. <em>Maybe all this was a mistake. Maybe I can’t make him understand how fucked he might’ve made me, not if I’m going to hit all these bloody dead ends when I try.</em></p>
<p>“It’s a better paycheck than anywhere <em>here</em>,” Terry settled on. “And they know I’ve got a soft office job. I just take off the robes before I leave so they don’t learn <em>where</em>.”</p>
<p>“You’re still mad at me?” Harry asked, wanting to be sure he still understood where this meeting was headed.</p>
<p>Terry let out a sharp surprised laugh. “<em>Really</em>? Of bloody <em>course</em> I am. It’s just like what I said before: <em>I</em> know when it is and isn’t the right moment to tell a bloke what I feel about him, especially when what I feel is he can go fuck himself off a short pier.” At that, Terry stopped walking. “Speaking of the proper time and place for that, here we are. Home sweet home.”</p>
<p>They stood before a tall off-kilter building with peeling paint the shade of wet dust. The shutters hung from the sides of each window like limp and broken arms, and the grimy gray of the front stoop had a pale patch on the edge of one step like it had required scrubbing with bleach.</p>
<p>“Bloody hell,” Harry murmured. “<em>This</em> is your house?”</p>
<p>“You should’ve seen the one I grew up in,” Terry quipped.</p>
<p>“I did,” Harry reminded them.</p>
<p>He remembered <em>that</em> house all too well. It had belonged to some other Boot relation by the time the Aurors got there after the war; Terry had been long ago kicked out when their father died without thinking to will it to his child.</p>
<p>The old Boot house had been a decrepit and woebegone place, so far into disrepair that portions had fallen in completely when the layers upon layers of old dark magic were removed like the char scraped off the bottom of an old pot. Like a few other old homes in Knockturn, that had permeated the building so deeply and for so long that the magic itself became responsible for the structural integrity, fragile and tenuous though it may be.</p>
<p>“I know you did,” Terry said. “Anyway, this ain’t <em>mine</em>. Not the whole house, anyhow. How rich d’you think I <em>am</em>?” They pointed up to one of the windows, up on the fifth story. “That’s me.”</p>
<p>The interior was dark, lit by charmed perpetual-burn candles every ten feet or so in the manner of so many old obsolete wizarding buildings. The enchantments were old and fading now, with many of the candles burning low and guttering and others gone out entirely.</p>
<p>The maybe-once-blue carpeting and maybe-once-toile wallpaper had an almost greasy sheen from layers of old dirt and grime, and a heavy cologne of cigarette smoke and old cooking—boiled meat and tinned beans—was marinated into every surface.</p>
<p>“<em>Don’t</em>,” Terry said to Harry with a sharp warning glare.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t going to say anything.”</p>
<p>“Good.” They cocked their head to instruct Harry to follow them as they started walking toward a rickety old cage elevator at the end of the corridor.</p>
<p>When Harry and Terry disembarked on the fifth floor, they stepped into a hallway very much like the one on the ground floor, shadowed and candlelit, but with a man lounging against the wall beside the first door as if he had been permanently installed there.</p>
<p><em>Gentleman</em> was the word Harry wanted to use to describe him, despite all the superficial evidence against that being the correct term. He wore old black robes, faded but meticulously mended, with myriad small mother-of-pearl buttons over the lapels sewn on in a pattern a little like flowers. His wingtips had likely seen four times more life than Terry’s battered Doc Martens, but they were still freshly shined. His age was a little hard to place beyond the head of white hair combed with pomade. His face was lined but strangely elegant, in a fragile way that suggested brittle parchment or fine thin cracks in bone china. He wasn’t a handsome man, not anymore; but Harry could imagine that once, long ago, when he had been young, he might have been called <em>lovely</em>.</p>
<p>“Bona to vada, Bette,” he said when he saw Terry step out of the elevator.</p>
<p>“Please don’t let him say nothing embarrassing,” Terry mumbled under their breath. “Evening, Sprewit.” They made a small gesture in greeting, like tipping an imaginary hat.</p>
<p>Sprewit’s gaze trailed from Terry to Harry lingering behind him, and his eyebrows slowly arched up in recognition. He beckoned Terry closer with the curl of one finger.</p>
<p>“Oi, ducky,” he said in what he seemed to think was a clandestine undertone, “you going to arva a rozzer?”</p>
<p>“Oh <em>gods</em>,” Terry exclaimed. “<em>No</em>, I ain’t going to—You know I ain’t never touched the law with that; I’m not <em>stupid</em>.”</p>
<p>The older gentleman—Sprewit—gave Terry a skeptical look. It was the same look Molly used to give the twins when they made broad claims about their responsibility and trustworthiness.</p>
<p>“Dead serious,” Terry vowed. “You know I never done that.”</p>
<p>“Look, Bette,” he murmured back, turning away from Harry. “If you’re skint, there’s more’n enough of us what would be happy to spot you some coin.” He glanced over his shoulder to address Harry, “Harry Potter, innit? Lot of bloody cheek.” Looking from Harry to Terry and back, he added, “Didn’t know you was <em>so</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry furrowed his brow. “I’m… Er, I’m so <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>Closing his eyes, Terry buried their face in one hand. “Gods give me strength,” they said. They looked back up to Sprewit through the gaps in their fingers. “He <em>ain’t</em> so, <em>believe</em> me, and if I ever hear even a whisper you’ve been rabbiting on to the others he’s in the life, or even <em>mention</em> that he’s been to visit me, so help me, I’ll—I’ll come up with a threat later. But it’ll be a good one.”</p>
<p>Laughing, Sprewit touched the side of his nose with a knowing wink. “Of course,” he promised. “Don’t worry about me. Mum’s the word.”</p>
<p>Terry turned back to Harry. “C’mon, don’t be hanging around the elevator all night.”</p>
<p>Harry hurried to catch up to Terry, not quite looking at Sprewit as he went past.</p>
<p>Terry’s door was at the end of the hall. It had <em>BOOT</em> spelled out on it in bright multicolor alphabet stickers, and Harry could feel the wards on it from even three paces back.</p>
<p>Inside, Terry’s home was a little square one-room flat that Harry imagined could have very easily felt cramped and depressing, were it not for the obvious effort put into cheering the place up.</p>
<p>The cracked plaster walls had been painted the vibrant light blue of a summer sky; the worn floorboards were covered with a large rug, a little tattered but woven in an array of bright colors; the big brass bed was covered in a thick duvet with green and purple chevron stripes; the window looking out onto the gray-brown building across the street was bordered in curtains made from a bright orange floral cloth; an old blush-pink armchair sat near an ancient Victorian divan whose plum-colored velvet upholstery was rubbed smooth. When Terry charmed the lighting on, a soft glow blinked on from a scattering of paper lanterns and colored glass globes hung from the ceiling.</p>
<p>And then there were the books. There was a set of shelves built into the wall next to the fireplace absolutely packed with them, plus another bookcase by the bed, and stacks of books in every other possible spot—on top of the wardrobe, on the shelf that also bore a modest collection of cups and dishes, on the mantelpiece, and then in stacks and crates inside the fireplace itself.</p>
<p>Harry took that as answer enough to the question of whether Knockturn Alley was still disconnected from the Floo Network.</p>
<p>The books seemed to be all kinds of <em>everything</em>, arranged with no particular logic. Harry could only imagine Hermione’s horror at the fact that many of them were placed spine inwards so the title wasn’t even visible.</p>
<p>After they locked the door behind them, Terry said, “Sorry about that, in the hall. Sprewit’s something of a house mother to the fifth story, I guess you could say. Just wanted to make sure I were all right bringing you home.” For maybe the first time Harry could remember, Terry looked a little awkward and embarrassed, not quite meeting Harry’s eyes directly as they said that.</p>
<p>“That’s okay,” Harry said. “I, er, didn’t follow most of what he said anyway.”</p>
<p>Terry let out a breath in relief and said, “The old fruit’s a good sort, don’t misunderstand.” They took two plates from the shelf. “I mean. Sure, he’s a drinker, same as me dad was. Only he ain’t never hurt another soul by it. And he’s always there for any of us in a scrape.” Terry unpacked the two Cornish pasties onto the plates as they continued carefully, “It’s just, I never know who Hammond’s been gossiping ‘round with in the office.” Crumpling the brown paper bag and tossing it in the bin, they took a deep breath and turned back to Harry. “When my father died, see, he didn’t leave nothing behind but some unpaid debts and a week’s worth of empty bottles. Sprewit’s the one what helped me find a way to stay on me feet and off the streets.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned as it took him a moment to read between those vague lines that Terry had given him. “But… Wait, what’s <em>Hammond</em> got to do with anything?”</p>
<p>“Oh. Him.” Terry set the two plates on the low wooden coffee table between the chair and divan. “Let’s just say that he and me go way back to his early days cutting his law enforcement eyeteeth on vice busts and me<em> own</em> early days of self-employment. So to speak.”</p>
<p>Harry knit his brows, working that out, until his eyes went round. “Boot, are you saying that you used to be… ? Er. <em>You know</em>.”</p>
<p>“Spare me the middle class morality and suburban scruples, Harry love,” Terry cut in, with a wan smile at Harry’s righteously scandalized expression. “I appreciate the sentiment, but this is Knockturn Alley, not the manicured front gardens of Surrey. Which is what Hammond wants to make sure I don’t forget, even though I weren’t never caught in the net of one of his raids back when he still worked that racket.”</p>
<p>“Sprewit called you Bette,” Harry said, having no idea how else he was supposed to respond to all of this.</p>
<p>Terry chuckled a little and rolled their eyes. “Cor, that’s an old one. I think he gave me the nickname around when—around the end of all <em>that</em>, the war and everything. ‘Cause of the song, you know?”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head.</p>
<p>“<em>She’s precocious</em>,” Terry sang softly, “<em>and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush. All the boys—think she’s a spy… she’s got Bette Davis eyes</em>.” They cleared their throat and rolled their eyes, a little self-conscious. “Sprewit said that were me on all counts, and I doubtless got to admit he weren’t wrong on that. But…”</p>
<p>“But?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. They nodded toward the armchair and divan. “Go on, get your coat off. Sit. Eat.”</p>
<p>Harry shrugged off his coat and hung it off the foot of the brass bed frame, then went to the pink armchair. He picked up one of the plates from the coffee table, looking at the blue blown-glass bong that sat there beside a small stack of paperbacks.</p>
<p>Terry followed his gaze from that to the half-empty fifth of firewhiskey on the mantel. “I detect a hint of judgment in your face, Harry love,” they commented. “You ain’t never thought a body ought to have a selection of vices to choose from?” As they talked, they crossed over to the wardrobe. They opened the door and almost disappeared behind it. “That’s me own take on the matter, anyway. You ever hear the theory of medieval crop rotation?” One hand flung the leather jacket they’d been wearing onto the bed. “The idea is, you got three fields, and you rotate what you plant in ‘em. Wheat in one, say, and beans in another, and leave the other be. Fallow, see. So you don’t wear out the soil by doing the same thing over and over to it.” Terry shut the wardrobe door. “Same principle. Rotate your bad habits to avoid getting <em>too</em> stuck on one in <em>particular</em>.”</p>
<p>They had changed from their jacket into an oversized purple cardigan jumper. It was frayed at the edges and the knit was laddered in a few places. A hole had been worn into the left cuff, which Terry looped their thumb through.</p>
<p>Underneath, they were still wearing a loose colorful blouse that looked like it might have come from a ladies’ vintage shop, paired with torn jeans in a cut so skinny they might as well have been painted on.</p>
<p>As if in defiant illustration of their speech about vice and crop rotation, they pulled a glass from the shelf and poured themself an ample portion of firewhiskey.</p>
<p>They picked up their plate and glass and came to sit on the side of the divan closest to Harry.</p>
<p>“How long have you lived here?” Harry asked.</p>
<p>Terry looked at him evenly. “You’re stalling. Since I were sixteen, when me dad died.”</p>
<p>“How did you pay rent? We were in school then, so you couldn’t have been—”</p>
<p>“There were perks to having a thing with a Zabini. Despite his <em>many</em> flaws, he were a soft touch with deep pockets. Either that, or he just foolishly imagined he could <em>Pretty Woman</em> me. You’re still stalling.”</p>
<p>“What d’you want me to say?” Harry asked. “Lovely home, please yell at me now?”</p>
<p>“Well, if you <em>insist</em>…” Terry took a bite of pasty and a swallow of firewhiskey. “Harry. What were you <em>thinking</em>.” They held up a hand to stop Harry before he could reply. “No. Wait. I know the answer to that one already. <em>That’s</em> the problem, innit? You <em>didn’t</em> think. You just <em>did</em> that, not thinking, not bloody <em>caring</em> how fucked over you was making the <em>rest</em> of us, because you didn’t want to be responsible for holding your tongue when you didn’t <em>feel</em> like it.”</p>
<p>“Hey, that’s not—”</p>
<p>“Fair?” Terry finished for him. “You’re fucking right it’s not fucking fair. It’s not <em>fair</em> that <em>you</em> get to yell at the Head Auror and get off with a suspension from a job you don’t like anyhow, that <em>you</em> get to do that and bounce back and know that it’ll all work out all right for <em>you</em> in the end. It’s not <em>fair</em> you ain’t wrong to believe that. It’s not <em>fair</em> this will turn out okay for <em>you</em>, and not me, and not Draco, when <em>you’re</em> the one who got selfish and only thought about his own stupid in-the-moment hurt feelings. And—No. Stop. Close your mouth. I don’t want to hear you tell me how you’re <em>sorry</em>. You <em>meant well</em>. You <em>didn’t mean to</em>. You’re a <em>good person</em>, so how can you have done a <em>bad thing</em>?” They pointed an emphatic finger at Harry: “You did a bad thing ‘cause you was being a thoughtless self-absorbed person. You heard yourself getting told off by Abernathy when you’d earned that from him, and you didn’t like it. ‘Cause you don’t <em>like</em> not being the hero. You don’t <em>like</em> not being in the right. Well, you can fuck right off with that, ‘cause you know what the rest of us got to do when we get raked over the coals? We got to sit there and take it and say <em>Yes, sir</em>, and <em>No, sir</em>, and <em>I’m sorry, sir</em>, and<em> You’re right, sir</em>. We got to shut up and keep our heads down and play nice, no matter how angry we feel. But not you. <em>You</em> get to mouth off to a superior and not even get sacked for it.”</p>
<p>“So you’re mad at me for, what, not getting in more trouble?”</p>
<p>Terry stared. “<em>No</em>,” they said. “No, I’m mad because if you wanted to fuck yourself over, fine. That’s your choice. But you decided to fuck over <em>other</em> people instead, and we didn’t have any control over it.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t decide to fuck <em>anyone</em> over!”</p>
<p>“No, ‘course not. That would mean you thought to even <em>think</em> of us.” Terry stopped to eat another bite and take another swallow. “Did you?”</p>
<p>“Did I… ?”</p>
<p>“Did you think of me, or Hermione, or Draco at any point during this? Did you think what might happen to us?”</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Harry snapped reflexively, then stopped to actually consider it. “Well. I knew that Hermione said the Minister’s office would back her decision, so Shacklebolt wouldn’t let her go down for giving me the assignment, let alone whatever <em>I </em>did without her knowledge after I got it. And Malfoy… I don’t know, he could have signed it over. It was his choice not to. It was his choice to ask me to deliver that letter he wrote. When I did, even if I hadn’t—lost my temper—I’m pretty sure Abernathy would’ve taken the assignment away from me anyway. I <em>warned</em> Malfoy about that. He <em>knew</em> there was that chance if he didn’t sign.”</p>
<p>Terry took a long slow breath in and out and stared hard at the edge of the coffee table by their plate. “Oh, good,” they said. “So it was just me who never crossed your mind.”</p>
<p>“Boot, come on, don’t…”</p>
<p>“Did you even think of me once in all this? Did I matter at <em>all</em>?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry answered firmly.</p>
<p>He thought back to the moment it occurred to him in the pub with Ron. But then he also remembered what Ron had reminded him: <em>I believe “camp as a row of tents” is the phrase I remember you using in school.</em></p>
<p>And how they had let the conversation move on to other things so quickly from there, as if Harry had done all he needed to, just by remembering for a moment that Terry still existed.</p>
<p>“But not enough to get in touch and ask me,” Terry said, watching Harry’s face.</p>
<p>“So you’re going to have the office to yourself for a week or two and they might pay a little more attention to your actual productivity while I’m gone,” Harry said. “It’s not the end of the world, Boot.”</p>
<p>Even as he said it, he knew it didn’t feel true.</p>
<p>“You don’t really believe that,” Terry said.</p>
<p>“I don’t?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “You think <em>I </em>of all people can’t read a person’s face? And that <em>you</em> of all people don’t have a face what plays all its thoughts and feelings on it big as a billboard? You know in your heart you’re not just <em>mildly inconveniencing me a little</em> for a couple weeks.”</p>
<p>“So tell me,” Harry said. “Tell me what I’m doing to you.”</p>
<p>Terry opened their mouth. A tiny breathless choked sound hitched out and they started coughing. Taking down the last of their firewhiskey in one swallow, they said in a tone caught somewhere between pleading and accusation, “I asked you on Friday, I asked you what your job was, I asked you to tell me what <em>mine</em> was, I asked you why we were there, I asked all the right questions, it’s not on <em>me</em> if you’re too thick to answer them—”</p>
<p>“Hang on,” Harry said. “You act like you know it all. So why would you bloody ask <em>me</em> if you already know? Why not just <em>tell</em> me? Or do you not know a damned thing after all, and this is just you and your Ravenclaw superiority, refusing to admit that your cleverness isn’t enough to know <em>everything</em>?”</p>
<p>“I don’t need <em>me</em> to know the answers to what I asked you Friday,” Terry said slowly, as if choosing their words with care. “I need <em>you</em> to figure it out.”</p>
<p>“Well, if you’ve already decided that I’m <em>too thick</em> to have the answers, why don’t you tell me what you <em>obviously</em> think I ought to know?” The question came out tetchy and sarcastic, and he winced at the sound of his own voice.</p>
<p>Terry shook their head firmly and said nothing.</p>
<p>They glared at Harry like Harry was a riddle that refused to be solved. They picked up their glass, remembered it was empty, and set it back down, hard. They took another couple bites of pasty.</p>
<p>They stood up with their glass, went back to the mantel, poured another couple fingers of firewhiskey, and said, “This isn’t getting anywhere. Do you or do you not understand what I’ve said so far about why I’m angry with you?”</p>
<p>“Yes. I think so.”</p>
<p>“Good. Explain it to me so I know you’ve got it.”</p>
<p>Harry glared at them and fought back the desire to say something snarky and argumentative. “You’re angry because I didn’t think of anyone else when I lost my temper with Abernathy. You’re angry that I just considered my own feelings in that moment and not the consequences it might have for Malfoy, or Hermione, or you. You’re angry that I didn’t think at <em>all</em>, really.” He bit his thumbnail, not sure whether he should actually say the next bit: “And you’re angry that you don’t have the same luxury I do to get mad at people with authority. You’re angry that I’m <em>allowed</em> to get angry, even when I really oughtn’t.”</p>
<p>Terry looked at Harry for a few seconds. “Good,” they said quietly. “Yeah. That’s a start.”</p>
<p>“What’s the rest?” Harry asked. “What <em>does</em> happen to you with me suspended?”</p>
<p>“I don’t… I don’t know exactly. I’ve been let know I should just sit tight and hold me breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it ain’t nothing <em>good</em>, Harry. And it ain’t nothing as nice and simple as just having to be better at me stupid imaginary job for the duration.” They tugged a loose loop of yarn at the end of the left cardigan sleeve with their teeth, thinking. “Might just give me the boot. Unlikely, though. I should be so lucky. Might stick me in a new office, even more cut off and alone. See how close they can get to making a day job like the—” <em>Like the prison sentence they never got to give me, because I agreed to be silenced instead. You stupid knob, Boot.</em> “Or they could give me—<em>another</em> job.” They paused to sip their firewhiskey, hoping that the next word from their mouth didn’t come too close to saying something forbidden. “Again.”</p>
<p>Harry tilted his head and knit his brow, realizing the question he should ask but having no inkling of its answer. “Boot,” he said, “what was your first job with the Aurors? Before we got moved to the same office?”</p>
<p>They paused for a few seconds before speaking. They nodded, just once, slow and serious, as if that was answer enough in itself.</p>
<p>
  <em>Yes. Right question.</em>
</p>
<p>“What it was,” they said carefully, “was done. It was completed to the Department’s satisfaction.” They closed their eyes for a moment, tensing a little. They pulled the cuff of their left sleeve down over their fingers, wrapped it in their closed fist, folded their arms tight around themself. “It has been—” They tried to find an end to that sentence they could say aloud. “Utilized.”</p>
<p>Harry gave them an odd bemused look, tinged with concern. “Oh, right, sure, <em>that’s</em> not vague at all. Clears it right up then.”</p>
<p>“Harry, please.” Terry sighed. “Let me not owe you nothing here, all right? <em>You’re</em> the one what owes <em>me</em> right now, remember?”</p>
<p>Harry stopped for a moment to convince himself he shouldn’t argue the point. Instead, he nodded and said, “So what do you need me to do?”</p>
<p>“That’s the problem,” Terry said. “I <em>don’t know</em> anymore. I know what I <em>needed</em> you to do, <em>before</em>—What I <em>had</em> needed you to do was to keep showing up to work without fucking up or putting a spotlight on either of us. What I needed you to do before was to share an office with me every day, ‘cause as long as you was in there, nobody’s keeping too close an eye on what I’m up to.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned. “Wait, what <em>were</em> you up to? I thought you were just slacking off, coming in late when you wanted, or”—his eyes flicked to the glass in Terry’s hand—“really hung over. Or fucking off in the middle of the day doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who—”</p>
<p>Terry tried and failed to hide an amused chuckle behind their hand, fingers still curled firm around the edge of his cardigan. “Oh, wow. Blimey, Harry. You’re so much better at being an oblivious accomplice than I ever counted on.” They emptied their glass then contemplated it in their hand as if they weren’t sure what to do with it now. “Thirsty?” they asked Harry.</p>
<p>“D’you have anything that <em>isn’t</em> firewhiskey?”</p>
<p>Terry made a little scoffing noise. “I do have tea, Harry. I’m not a <em>monster</em>.” They looked at the empty glass in their hand again for a moment before putting it on the mantel by the now more-than-half-empty bottle of firewhiskey. Crossing to the other side of his room, Terry got a tea kettle and went to fill it through the narrow WC door that Harry had almost missed noticing in the gap between a bookcase and the wardrobe. After Terry set it on the little portable hotplate on the corner table, they came back to sit on the divan near Harry, tucking their feet up under them. “Of course, I <em>am</em> guilty of doing the other things you mentioned, too. You ain’t wrong about that; a point and a half to Gryffindor for those detective skills.” They shot Harry a bright impish grin. “But you ask the right question: What have I been up to?”</p>
<p>Terry rearranged themself to lean one elbow on the arm of the divan, facing Harry with those big hazel eyes. They reached their other hand reflexively to where their glass had been on the coffee table. When it wasn’t there, they just flexed their fingers and brushed their fringe to the side.</p>
<p>“This one I can give you an answer to,” they said. “How communicative is the Auror Department with the Minister’s office under Abnernathy’s leadership?”</p>
<p>“Not.” Harry picked at the thick flaky crust of his half-eaten pasty. “So that’s why you and Hermione get lunch at Muggle café where nobody knows who you work for.”</p>
<p>“Last I heard, you had no idea about that.” Terry looked pleased with Harry.</p>
<p>“She told me when I talked to her Friday before going to Maine,” Harry said. “So you’re what, her mole?”</p>
<p>Terry beamed. “It’s what they get, really, for filtering all that paperwork through us and also not paying me too much mind when I wander off and chat with folks,” they said. “But, yes, that’s a big part of what I’ve been doing. Or <em>a</em> part, anyhow. It’s the main thing <em>you</em> need to focus on right now.”</p>
<p>“What are the other parts?” Harry asked. “Are you gathering intel for anyone other than Hermione?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Terry said. “Me.”</p>
<p>“You?” Harry echoed, puzzled. “What are <em>you</em> going to do with—?”</p>
<p>His question was cut short by the high thin wail of the tea kettle.</p>
<p>“Damn, hang on a tick, hold that thought.” Terry scrambled to get up and finish making up a pot of tea for their houseguest. “Do you take milk and—? Bollocks. I don’t have milk. I guess I might be <em>something</em> of a monster, not having milk for tea, eh? A… demi-monster of tea, perhaps. Sugar. Do you take sugar?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded.</p>
<p>Terry pulled a tin off the shelf and looked inside. “One lump or… Ah. One lump. That’s it.” They shot Harry a sheepish grin. “I reckon I don’t get to have guests over for a cuppa very often, all proper and distinguished-like. Seems I ain’t exactly well-supplied to play host for <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said. “Considering everything at stake here, I’m hardly in a position to be allowed to get miffed at <em>you</em> for anything, let alone for not having milk and sugar.”</p>
<p>“Good point.”</p>
<p>“Are you still mad at me?” Harry asked, taking the cup and saucer from Terry.</p>
<p>“Sure,” Terry said, pouring themself another drink before sitting down again. “Only… I dunno. I’ve been so bloody angry at you for two and a half days now. It’s been exhausting.” They chuckled a little. “You should’ve come and faced me on Monday when I had it in me to tear you into a hundred pieces. But it’s Wednesday now and it’s not that you deserve it less; it’s just I’m burned out on it and need to let some of that go, for me own sanity.” Picking at a bit of fluff on their cardigan, they continued, “Where was I? Oh. Right. You was asking me what I’m doing with the information I’m gathering for meself. Maybe I’m just being stupid or naïve to think I can do anything on me own to change how a single thing in the world works, but… I don’t know, I’m just collecting right now. Putting together ideas and plans for how things might work better in the world, filling notebooks with problems nobody cares about and ideas that nobody’ll listen to, feeling like maybe I’m the only who can even see these things, even though they seem so bleedin’ <em>obvious</em>.” They rubbed a thumb over one eyebrow, chuckling sadly at their own utterly hopeless hubris. “So if I’m the only one what can see these things, ain’t it me responsibility to try and <em>fix</em> them?”</p>
<p>Harry took a sip of his tea as he tried to puzzle out what Terry had just told him. “What kinds of things have you seen that need fixing?”</p>
<p>Terry blinked at him. “Where d’you even <em>start</em>?” They affected a pose in imitation of deep thought, cupping their chin lightly in their fingertips. “Let’s see. Here’s one: Azkaban.”</p>
<p>“What’s wrong with Azkaban?”</p>
<p>“We got rid of the Dementors.”</p>
<p>“That’s a good thing!”</p>
<p>“Sure it is. But they only got rid of ‘em when they sided with the Dark Lord after the big prison break, right? Not because it was—oh, I dunno—<em>inhumane</em>. You ever meet someone what did a short sentence on something stupid in Azkaban, back under the Dementors? They’re mostly fine after, except not. It’s like claiming a house with a ghost is perfectly good and unhaunted, ‘cause <em>most</em> of the rooms are ghost-free <em>most</em> of the time.” Terry took a drink. “But, sure, all right, they pulled ‘em out and hired actual human guards instead, all at once, under duress. And then what? There was no protocol in place, no standards of conduct, and, yes, I know they’ve written those up and come up with training since then, but most of the staff is still those first hires and the habits were set back in ’98 when everyone being thrown in was seen as Death Eater scum and the like, even those just in for holding while awaiting trial, even those of us whose actual involvement was still being sorted out. And the Dementors were the norm for centuries, so treating the inmates ‘better than the Dementors did’ feels good enough to folks, right? Feels softer and kinder, more charitable than it needs to be, ‘cause, hey, we was fine with the old way, we was fine assuming the people in there deserved <em>that</em>. And the people in there now are people we hate so much, ain’t they? Don’t we <em>hate</em> Lucius Malfoy? Don’t we <em>hate</em> the Carrows? Don’t we <em>hate</em>—? And so on, and so on. So shouldn’t we feel all warm and generous treating such vile people better than we ever treated criminals before? Even if there’s no difference in there between a Death Eater and a bloke what got caught selling black market dragon’s claw to keep a roof over his head. No difference but the length of the sentence.”</p>
<p>Harry swallowed. He looked at the tea leaves settled in the bottom of his cup, tried to make out a shape in them, tried to remember anything he’d learned from Trelawney. As though he could block out the ideas Terry had just put forth. As though he could forestall the moment when he cleared his throat and looked at his officemate with guilty eyes to say: “But ‘better than before’ isn’t nearly the same as ‘good enough.’ And I’ve put a <em>lot</em> of people in there, you know.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“So you’re collecting information on Azkaban through work? So you can come up with a way to suggest they fix it?”</p>
<p>“That one a little less so,” Terry admitted. “You know the Department don’t really have much to do with the place—We just ship people over there and leave it to Azkaban to mind itself. But there’s some stuff I’ve picked up here and there at work on that. A lot more in talking to the people in the neighborhood who’ve been in and out during the last few years.” Taking another small swallow from their glass, Terry said, “It’s not just the Auror Department, Harry love. That’s too small a picture to be the whole puzzle. That’s just one piece. I’ve got entire <em>notebooks</em>…”</p>
<p>“And I’ve just fucked you over on trying to figure out the key to making the world a better place?”</p>
<p>“That makes me sound like I’m vying to win a beauty pageant: ‘I just want everyone to suddenly decide to be <em>nice</em> to each other, and to save all the puppies, and achieve world peace.’ But that about squares it, I s’pose.” They looked at Harry. “You probably think I’m foolish and gullible to think there’s a single person out there that’d look twice at the political propositions of—of the likes of me.”</p>
<p>Harry raised his eyebrows. “What about Hermione?”</p>
<p>“Oh, you <em>are</em> good. Okay, a <em>second</em> person, then.”</p>
<p>“Me.”</p>
<p>Terry grinned at him. “I’m touched to hear that, <em>really</em> I am. But you ain’t too influential yourself these days, what with you being sent home sans badge for as long as Abernathy feels like teaching you a lesson about not stirring the pot.”</p>
<p>“Well, then I reckon that’s just another problem that needs a solution,” Harry said. “Though you’re right. I’m not too worried about my own well-being. You’re right, it’s you and the others who need the most help right now.” He hesitated. “Have you, er, been able to hear anything about what’s happening with Malfoy since I… did what I did on Monday morning?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “Nobody’s telling me anything about <em>that</em>. But from what I can feel out, nothing’s been done yet. You know they’ll send one of the big guns—one of Abernathy’s golden boys—and Dubenich is still putting the final touches on that smuggling ring bust he was in the middle of last week, while McLaggen’s still in the Hebrides. He hasn’t come back by Portkey or Floo Network anyway.” A soft little smile passed over Terry’s face. “At least I’ve still got Magical Transportation talking to me.”</p>
<p>“Hammond?”</p>
<p>“Still drinking out of a paper Caffè Nero cup and bitching about East Sussex.”</p>
<p>“There’s no rush though, is there? Malfoy’s been without his estate long enough and I’m out of the loop, so they can take their time.”</p>
<p>“Lull Malfoy into a false sense of security?”</p>
<p>“Maybe. At least catch him off-guard. They know I know my own job well enough to know that Malfoy could expect someone else in my place if I didn’t work out.”</p>
<p>“And he knows that too, I take it?”</p>
<p>“I warned him.”</p>
<p>Terry let out a little sarcastic <em>ha</em> at that. “No matter your good intentions, that sort of thing ain’t a nice concerned <em>warning</em> coming from someone with the word <em>Auror</em> before their name, bruv; it’s a <em>threat</em>.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s what Malfoy thought too,” Harry agreed miserably.</p>
<p>“’Course he did. The boy’s been on the wrong side of the law since we was twelve,” Terry said. “He’s got to remember you lot don’t just give up and pack it in when you want something.”</p>
<p>“‘You lot,’” Harry said. “Forgetting who you work for <em>too</em>, Boot?”</p>
<p>“Ain’t actually an Auror, remember? Grant me <em>that</em> much right now, all right? I need what little comfort I’ve got left in this mess.” Terry cocked their head to the side and fixed Harry with a keen curious gaze. “Which brings me to the bit I’m sure you’ve already been through <em>ad nauseam</em> with Hermione and Ron, but you have to humor me and do it again: Draco Malfoy. Spill the tea. I want <em>everything</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry hesitated. “Is this intel gathering or… ?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no. This is straight gossip. I’m incurably nosy and’ve been dying to know what became of that skinny mouthy entitled brat ever since you went out there.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Harry contemplated, “he’s still a couple of those things.” He paused. “You know, I haven’t told Ron or Hermione all that much about him. I told them he works in a diner now, and he seems happy, and he’s <em>changed</em>. But he’s also still the same somehow.” Harry furrowed his brow. “The important things to change have changed, but the important things to keep have stayed. If that makes sense.”</p>
<p>Terry nodded. “Like what?”</p>
<p>“Like we talked through all that stuff we’d never put to rest before, about him, and his family, and Voldemort, and the war. Like he knows what he did and can apologize for it and mean it. Like how I—I forgive <em>him</em> those things, and I don’t think I’ve forgiven <em>anyone</em> else.” Harry gave a short resigned chuckle. “Is <em>this</em> why you were a spy? ‘Cause you can make it seem <em>safe</em> to tell you things I didn’t want to tell my own best friends?”</p>
<p>“It <em>is</em> safe to tell me things,” Terry said earnestly, with no trace of joking in their eyes or voice. “Harry, I—I’ve always been good at keeping a secret. I need <em>you</em> to believe that, at least.”</p>
<p><em>You don’t even need to force me to agree to a Vow of Secrecy spell</em>.</p>
<p><em>Or two</em>.</p>
<p>“Rumor has it,” Harry mused, “you were the person in school to go to if someone wanted to learn to snog properly. But nobody ever heard a <em>single word</em> from you about who’d actually done it.”</p>
<p>Terry laughed in surprised delight. “I haven’t thought about <em>that</em> in ages.” Tapping the side of their head, they added, “I’ve still got the whole list up here and I’ll be taking it to the grave with me, you have my word.”</p>
<p>“If you’ll keep a secret,” Harry said carefully, “I’d like to—I’ve been… thinking about some things, since getting back from Maine. And I haven’t wanted to talk to Ron or anyone about it, because it feels like telling him parts of Malfoy that should be kept, I dunno, safe.”</p>
<p>“You’re protecting Draco Malfoy from Ron Weasley?” Terry asked. “Merlin, the times <em>have</em> changed. What parts of Malfoy are you keeping safe? You said he was happy.”</p>
<p>“He’s gay,” Harry blurted out, a little too fast and a little too loud, before he could second-guess the door those two words might threaten to open.</p>
<p>Terry’s eyebrows went up in surprise and amusement. “Oh? <em>Is</em> he?”</p>
<p>“You sound like you already knew. Was that one of those secrets you’d been keeping for someone all these years?”</p>
<p>Terry paused for a moment before answering, “I guess it doesn’t matter much now to say I knew that before you told me, not now that you know too.”</p>
<p>“How did you know?” Harry asked. “Did he <em>tell</em> you? <em>Why</em>?”</p>
<p>“No, not exactly. He—” Terry’s voice broke off in a little gagging noise at the back of their throat. They took a deep breath, an expression of anger and confusion passing over their face. “Why <em>that</em>,” they mumbled to themself, then took another large drink from their glass. “No,” they said to Harry again. “Not exactly.”</p>
<p>Terry thought back to the war and those strange lost-alone love-starved nights in the trenches of Malfoy Manor. They could still remember all too vividly Draco’s long pale limbs wrapped around them, the ridges of his ribcage and the sharp jut of his hipbones under Terry’s hands. They remembered each afterwards, tangled together and clinging, Terry smoothing a hand over Draco’s hair, slick with sweat and pomade, as Draco told them who he dreamt of at night, in the desperate heartbroke whisper of someone giving his last confession, in case he should die tomorrow.</p>
<p>Draco, clever enough to have guessed Terry’s real intent in insinuating themself with the Death Eaters, and yet still believing somehow that Terry would keep his secret the way they kept everyone else’s.</p>
<p>The only secret that might have made a difference was Draco’s, and Terry didn’t want to win a war on that. There were a thousand other paths that didn’t depend betraying the confession of another scared kid, given in a moment of vulnerability, sex-drowsy and dangerously lonely:</p>
<p><em>Gods, Boot, I’ve been in love with him so long, I don’t think I could kill him if I was told I had to. No matter </em>how<em> good I am at hating the things that make me love them</em>.</p>
<p> Harry was chewing a hangnail and looking at his own lap with a knit brow. “Boot. How did <em>you</em> know you weren’t, y’know, straight?”</p>
<p>Terry took in Harry’s worried countenance. “How did I <em>know</em> I were queer?”</p>
<p>“Er, yes. That. Or <em>when</em>, maybe? I… I asked Malfoy when we were talking but didn’t actually get an answer from him.”</p>
<p>“Fucking hell, Harry love. Of <em>course</em> you didn’t. <em>Nobody</em> likes fielding <em>that</em> horseshite question from nosy straight boys.” Terry regarded Harry thoughtfully. “What did Malfoy say when you asked?”</p>
<p>“He asked me how <em>I</em> knew I was straight.”</p>
<p>Terry laughed, delighted. “You’re making me kind of miss that posh bastard, you know.”</p>
<p>“He said the same of you,” Harry told them. “He said he almost misses that son of a bitch.”</p>
<p>Terry beamed, touched by that sentiment.</p>
<p>Harry took a deep breath then looked at Terry evenly, chin at that brave stubborn angle. “When I asked Malfoy <em>that</em> question—the horseshite one, as you called it—he also suggested that maybe I wasn’t really asking about <em>him</em>.”</p>
<p>Terry drew in a quiet little breath at that. They slid down the seat of the divan away from Harry and patted the now-vacant spot next to them. “Come here,” they said, voice firm but gentle.</p>
<p>Without protesting, Harry moved from the armchair to sit beside Terry.</p>
<p>Terry looked at Harry. Their eyes seemed all at once too piercing and too compassionate.</p>
<p><em>It’s </em>safe<em> to tell them things</em>, Harry thought.</p>
<p>“When Malfoy suggested that,” Terry said, “what did you say?”</p>
<p>“I denied it.”</p>
<p>“How?” Terry asked. “In that forthright honest Gryffindor way I admire the hell out of? Or in that flustered no-poker-face way that reminds me what a shite liar you’ve always been?”</p>
<p>“I—Er. Well. I mean—”</p>
<p>“Yes. <em>That</em> one, thanks for the demonstration.” Terry smiled, a little bit teasing. Then, serious again: “Harry. What <em>are</em> you really asking when you ask that question?”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes were wide. He regretted cornering himself into something he was afraid to say now, as desperately as he wanted someone to force him to say it, someone closer and riskier than Dudley.</p>
<p>Terry took a deep breath. “You want to know what I think?”</p>
<p>“What do you think?” Harry asked. It came out nervous, just above a whisper.</p>
<p>“I think when someone asks <em>how do I know</em> about themself, then most of the time, they’re already pretty sure they know. They just want someone else to tell them. And that ain’t me job to do; it ain’t on <em>me</em> to figure something out for someone else. It would be presumptuous of me to try, and unfair of you to ask me to.” Terry regarded Harry. “So. <em>Harry</em>. What’s the <em>real</em> question you’re asking, and what’s the answer you’re hoping to hear?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Steal Smoked Fish" by The Mountain Goats.</p>
<p>Hopefully will get the next chapter up in the next week, which answers the question this one ends with :)</p>
<p>(I never actually expected that I'd be dusting off and reworking my very old version of Terry Boot for a new fic, who previously existed roughly a lifetime ago on FictionAlley. Talk about throwbacks from the past there…)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Twelve</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>And if you must put me in a box</em><br/>
<em>Make sure it's a big box</em><br/>
<em>With lots of windows</em><br/>
<em>And a door to walk through</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry took a deep breath. He fidgeted and started to pick at his nails and cuticles.</p>
<p>Terry reached over and picked up Harry’s cup and saucer and handed it to him to give his hands something else to do while he found the nerve to answer.</p>
<p>“The real question I’m asking,” Harry repeated.</p>
<p>Terry waited, patient and unblinking.</p>
<p>Harry took a sip of tea, grateful for the way that keeping the cup balanced on the saucer steadied and stilled his hands; it nearly tricked him into feeling almost calm. He looked back up at Terry sitting beside him, trying to convince himself he felt as even as Earl Grey in an old china cup, as stable as the hands gripping its saucer.</p>
<p>“Am I bisexual?”</p>
<p>Terry beamed in complete unselfish delight at that, but said nothing, waiting for Harry to tell them his own right answer to that question.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry said.</p>
<p>The moment that single syllable escaped his mouth, a quick spike of adrenaline jolted up his chest to his throat, the way it always did when he was afraid he’d exposed something about himself, something people could use to hurt him.</p>
<p>But from the grin spreading across Terry’s face, Harry knew they didn’t see this revelation as weak, or wrong, or deserving of hurt.</p>
<p>“<em>Thank</em> you,” Terry said. “Thank you for trusting me to—Oh, Merlin, Harry, I could just about hug you. <em>Can</em> I hug you?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded, and Terry threw their thin arms around him, pulling him close and holding him for a long time, laughing in giddy joy, like Harry deserved this kind of affection, like they were real friends, like Harry wasn’t only there to be reprimanded for hurting Terry by not even thinking of them.</p>
<p>Letting go, Terry asked, “Is this a <em>recent</em> revelation, or… ?”</p>
<p>“No. No, not exactly. I guess I’ve known since… I don’t know. A long, long time. Maybe—I dunno, fifteen years? Maybe. I only ever told Ginny, just once, years back. And I told my cousin last Friday at the pub. I don’t know why. But I guess I don’t think about it too much, or I <em>try</em> not to, or it… just doesn’t seem important?” Harry made a face. “No, that’s not it. It’s just—It can’t <em>matter</em>, y’know?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head slowly. “No, I <em>don’t</em> know, Harry. I’m sorry. For me, it’s always mattered so <em>much</em> to who I am,” they said, “even though it took years of trial and error trying on the wrong selves to even figure out what that person <em>was</em>. But I ain’t you. You and me got different selves and different lives.” They paused, choosing their next words carefully. “But if you want me two Knuts’ worth on what you just said, it sounds like you tried so hard to make it <em>not matter</em> that you stuck yourself wondering if it’s even real, even after saying it aloud. And I don’t know if that’s fair to do to a person, bruv, even if that person’s yourself.”</p>
<p>“Well, I was <em>married</em>,” Harry pointed out.</p>
<p>“And if you stayed married and lived out a life together, you still would’ve counted as bisexual and it still would’ve been allowed to <em>matter</em>,” Terry replied.</p>
<p>“My cousin said so too,” Harry said. “When I said the same thing to him, about having been married when I told Gin and not looking to change what we had.”</p>
<p>Terry nodded sagely. “Listen to your cousin. He sounds like a smart lad; he knows what he’s talking about.”</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I don’t know that anyone’s ever said that about Dudley before,” he commented.</p>
<p>“Well, then you tell him that the smartest person you know thinks he sounds like he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyebrows went up. “The smartest person I know? Think a lot of yourself there. Do you not remember that I know <em>Hermione</em>?”</p>
<p>“Oh, well. Hermione’s brilliant, don’t get me wrong. And I ain’t just saying that ‘cause I adore her or nothing.” Terry grinned. “But what she is, is she’s smart in a way the world knows how to measure—in academics and test scores and memorizing the right information from the right books and putting it together in clever ways. And now, learning all those policies and all that bureaucracy and keeping it straight and knowing what it’s for and how to use it. Those Head Boy-Head Girl types, they’re aces at that kind of work. And I bloody love ‘em for it, more’n you know. I sure as hell ain’t wired to do that as well as <em>they</em> do, but…” They shook their head and shrugged. “But I meant what I meant. After all, if I ain’t honest about meself, how can I expect even a glimmer of a chance of anyone <em>else</em> noticing what they ought to see in me?”</p>
<p>Harry wasn’t quite certain what he was expected to say to that, so he latched onto the one bit he’d gotten stuck at: “You <em>adore</em> Hermione?”</p>
<p>Terry seemed puzzled at Harry’s puzzlement. “’Course I do. You know that. Everyone knows that,” they said. “Don’t deflect the conversation to old news, Harry. We’re talking about <em>you</em>, and how you’re bisexual, and how much that matters.”</p>
<p>“We don’t have to,” Harry said. “Hang on, let me just ask about you and Herm—”</p>
<p>“You know, we should have a toast,” Terry broke in. “To celebrate.” They finished the last bit of firewhiskey in their glass, then looked over at the mantle in mild annoyance. “But not with <em>that</em> fucking rail swill; you deserve something better than <em>that</em> for <em>this</em>. Give us a moment.” They hopped up from the divan and left the room before Harry could protest that his coming out didn’t warrant a <em>toast</em>.</p>
<p>Terry was back in a couple minutes with a bottle of apricot brandy. “Sprewit,” they said by way of an explanation. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him <em>why</em> I wanted it, just asked him if I could have a bottle of something festive.”</p>
<p>“Boot, you really don’t have to do—<em>this</em>. It’s not worth a celebration. I don’t even know why I brought it up.” Harry forced a laugh that sounded almost natural. “I reckon I just proved your point about how I say things without thinking them through, didn’t I?”</p>
<p>Handing Harry another teacup, this one half-full of sweet-smelling brandy, Terry took a seat beside him, holding their own cup of brandy. “Harry. No. It’s worth it, if only ‘cause you feel like it <em>isn’t</em>. I’ve just watched you spend the last few minutes trying to make a whole entire part of you not matter, not mean anything, not be worth being happy over, and that’s <em>bollocks</em>, Harry.” They clinked their cup against Harry’s. “So here’s to you. Congratulations, Harry Potter, on being something worth celebrating. Even if you don’t see it yet.”</p>
<p>Harry took a drink and coughed. The brandy was strong and cloying; it seemed to coat his tongue like a syrup and a sudden warmth flushed his face.</p>
<p>Terry took a swallow from their own cup and winced. “All right, so it’s a bit sweet. But it’s the thought that counts, innit? Y’know, the symbolism of the act of toasting, what have you.” They took another drink, then pulled their feet back up to sit cross-legged, regarding Harry with a casual scrutiny. “So that’s who you are, is it?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know if I want to go that far,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“I know you don’t. That’s why I’m going there for you. It’s as much who you are as <em>Gryffindor</em> or <em>father</em> or—gods help us—<em>The Boy Who Lived</em>.” Terry gave Harry a wry look. “I reckon someone’ll probably want to give you the talk on what it’d mean to the world to have Harry Potter come out as bisexual, and when that person does, they won’t be wrong. But me? I reckon you’ve spent enough of your life having your every move served up on a platter for everyone to grab a piece. So right now, I only really care about you, me old pal Harry.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t… I don’t even know if I’ve ever considered the idea of people <em>knowing</em>. I don’t even know if I want it to come up with—with Ron or Hermione, and then the rest of the Weasleys by association. It feels like too much to think about, the idea of…” He shrugged and fell silent.</p>
<p>“Of… ?” Terry prompted.</p>
<p>“Of… Of being paid attention to,” Harry said. “Of being <em>noticed</em> and talked about. Especially in places where I’m not noticed, where I just blend in with everyone else and disappear.” He made a face. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “You’ve had all the eyes of the world on you since you was eleven. Must be exhausting.”</p>
<p>Harry started to shake his head, then nodded. Then shook his head. “No, not just that—I <em>never</em> wanted to be<em>…</em> I mean, when I was a kid, before Hogwarts, before I knew all that Boy-Who-Lived stuff, when I was <em>nothing</em>, I still had to try <em>so hard</em> to never be <em>seen</em> ‘cause I…” He shook his head again. “Never mind. I’m talking nonsense.”</p>
<p>“When I were a kid,” Terry said carefully, watching Harry’s face to read the smallest reactions, “I tried to learn to be as invisible as I could, to try and protect meself. Bleedin’ hard enough to unlearn when you get a say in when and how you get seen. So it must be near impossible when you get yanked straight out of the dark into a spotlight you didn’t make yourself.”</p>
<p>Setting his brandy down hard, Harry shot Terry an accusatory look.</p>
<p>Terry hadn’t expected that.</p>
<p>“What do <em>you</em> know about when I was a kid?” Harry asked, with a wariness in his voice that could have easily been mistaken for pride by someone who hadn’t spent a whole lifetime learning the little secret meanings in the inflections of others.</p>
<p>“Not much,” they admitted with a shrug, all warm nonchalance. “Just a bit of a guess. Neville once mentioned he heard you had a rough time of it. Didn’t think it me place to press much further than that.”</p>
<p>“You’re right, it isn’t,” Harry agreed reflexively. “Why did Neville tell you that? <em>When</em>?”</p>
<p>“Dunno, some time or another. It weren’t anything <em>important</em>, just two friends having a chat. Believe me, as fascinating as I’m sure an official summit on Things What We Know About Harry Potter’s Private Life would be to a lot of folks, I’m not in the habit of prying into things—” They broke off, seeing Harry’s skeptical raised eyebrows. With a laugh, Terry amended, “Fair ‘nough, you’re right. But I don’t pry into things without a <em>purpose</em>. And even then, that’s been pretty much limited to Aurors and Death Eaters. Not me own friends.”</p>
<p>“<em>I’m</em> an Auror.”</p>
<p>“Eh, barely. You don’t count.”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t want to think too much about how much that pleased him to hear. “I feel like quite a lot of people in the last few days have accused me of being a bad Auror.”</p>
<p>Terry shrugged. “So maybe you are,” they said. “That’s okay.”</p>
<p>“No, it isn’t!”</p>
<p>“Why not?” Terry took another long drink of brandy and shuddered a little at its syrupy sweetness.</p>
<p>“Because this was what I was supposed to be good at,” Harry explained impatiently. “All this was the <em>only</em> thing I was <em>ever</em> good at. So if I’m not cut out for being an Auror, is there <em>anything</em> I’m good for?”</p>
<p>Terry blinked at that candid confession. “Of course,” they said. “You’re a good dad.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I mean.”</p>
<p>“All right, how’s this one then: You were the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I ever had in school,” Terry told him. “And, no, don’t argue me that; I ain’t just saying that just to say that. I’m a Ravenclaw, remember? We take that sort of thing bloody <em>serious</em>.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t a real teacher.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you were. You were teaching, people were learning.” At that, they set down their cup to focus on Harry like he was an equation Terry was on the brink of solving. But they set that aside and went back to something else Harry had said: “So you haven’t told your friends, not in all these years. Harry, what d’you think would happen if you did? D’you think they wouldn’t support you?”</p>
<p>“No,” Harry said. “Just that they wouldn’t understand. Or—Or that it’d just make me feel even more different than the rest of them than I already do. In ways they don’t even realize, ‘cause they’re all—”</p>
<p>“Not Harry Potter?”</p>
<p>“No. We already established <em>that</em>. Over and over for sixteen years.” Harry took a swallow of brandy, feeling the warm flush rise over his chest and face. “I was <em>going</em> to say, my friends are all white. Well. <em>Almost</em> all of them, anyway.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Terry looked serious. “I didn’t think of that.”</p>
<p>Harry gave them a thin smile. “Yeah. Nobody else ever does.”</p>
<p>“Kind of proved your point there, didn’t I.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Harry stared at his brandy. “It’s okay.”</p>
<p>“No, it’s not,” Terry said. “You shouldn’t owe it to us to pretend it is. I’m—I’m sorry, Harry.” They looked cautious and hesitant, thrown a little farther into uncertainty than they were accustomed to being. “You also don’t owe it to me to talk about if you don’t want, but if you do…”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head. “I don’t like talking about… I dunno, feelings. All that.”</p>
<p>“I’ve noticed.”</p>
<p>“Anyway, it’s not <em>bad</em>, I guess, with friends. It’s just a thing I’m <em>aware</em> of, and I don’t like being aware of myself like that.” Harry sighed. “Never mind. It’s not a <em>bad</em> thing, most of the time. Not with friends, anyway. It’s just a thing there. It’s not like it’s—” He broke off, biting his lower lip, brow furrowed like he hadn’t realized he could let himself almost say aloud what he’d stopped himself from saying.</p>
<p>Terry waited, not pressing Harry to go on.</p>
<p>“It’s not at work,” Harry murmured.</p>
<p>Terry put a hand on Harry’s arm. “Harry,” they said, then found they had nothing else to say. They were unused to feeling lost and unclever, all their intelligence coming up dry on something they had no solution to, something they had not yet even tried very hard to solve.</p>
<p>They mentally added it to their list, circling and underlining it yet, but that did nothing yet, not here, in this moment, in this room.</p>
<p>“It’s not the same,” Terry said. “I know it’s not the same, not at all, but—But at the very least, if you was to come out as bisexual, you wouldn’t be alone for that. It’s something <em>else</em>, but maybe it’s still <em>something</em>. And it’s the best I’ve got to give you right now, I’m afraid.” They sighed and wrapped their other arm around Harry’s shoulders. “If nothing else, I know that helps with that part of a person, having a support system for that. Your own queer family to hold onto.”</p>
<p>Harry turned his head to give Terry a quizzical doubting look. “How?” he asked. “Where?”</p>
<p>“Well, mine I built <em>here</em>,” Terry said. “But I can’t give you that family to share. I don’t think me motley Knockturn crew would make much room for an Auror.”</p>
<p>“Sprewit?”</p>
<p>Terry nodded. “Him and others, a lot of ‘em in this building. But I ain’t going to rat out a baker’s dozen petty criminals and sex workers to the law, no matter how fond of you I am, Harry love. Anyway, you got plenty of your own queer friends as is. Even if they don’t all share the same house as you, as it were, we all at least share a neighborhood.” They took their arm from around Harry’s shoulders to count on their fingers: “Me, for one. Proud genderqueer and fellow bisexual—maybe a next-door neighbor at a diagonal. Seamus, who’s gay, I <em>think</em>, so might live two doors down on the other side. Luna’s trans and pan, so I think she’s next over from  me—We probably practically share a garden. And next door to her, I could put what’s-his-name you played Quidditch for Gryffindor with.”</p>
<p>“Aiden Spinnet,” Harry said. “And Seamus tends to prefer <em>queer</em> over <em>gay</em>, last I heard.”</p>
<p>“Noted,” Terry said, then kept counting: “And Neville is asexual and aromantic.” Terry grinned. “Let’s give him a nice house in the middle of the street with the biggest garden.”</p>
<p>Harry was smiling now, Terry’s metaphor making him feel as though he might not be as alone as he thought, after all. “And Susan Bones and Padma Patil have been together for quite a while, but that’s more your crowd than mine.”</p>
<p>“Justin Finch-Fletchley,” Terry added.</p>
<p>“My cousin.”</p>
<p>Terry laughed. “You’re just proving me point, you know that, right? That if you wanted to come out to your own friends, you’ve got a whole safety net of people what’d be more’n happy to catch you. That whole little neighborhood, right there, with a place ready and waiting for you to move in whenever you’re ready.”</p>
<p>Harry thought that over, but before he could figure out how to respond, they were interrupted by a quiet tap at the window. Cursing under their breath, Terry got up to unlatch it and let in an imperious barn owl.</p>
<p>The owl settled on the top of the brass headboard and Terry sat on the bed beside it to take its letter.</p>
<p>Harry watched Terry open the neat white envelope with an expression that Harry could recognize all too easily—the soft happy butterfly look of a person getting a message from someone they like quite a lot. Terry read the letter inside, a private glowing smile reaching from their lips to their eyes, one hand absentmindedly running over the owl’s feathers as it nipped at their fingers with familiar affection.</p>
<p>After they were done, they put the letter back in the envelope and slipped it into one of the large pockets in their cardigan. They dug out a pad of paper and a pen to write a note back, which they folded into a small square. They tied it around the owl’s leg and fed it a bit of pasty crust before releasing it back out through the window with a cheerful, “Off you go then, mate.”</p>
<p>As Terry returned to their seat on the divan, Harry asked, “Who was that from? The person you’ve been hooking up with in secret at work?”</p>
<p>A pleased look almost like a blush spread over Terry’s face. “Maybe.”</p>
<p>“Who is it?”</p>
<p>Terry shot him a look. “Did you miss the bit where you just said ‘in secret?’”</p>
<p>“It’s so secret that you’re not even allowed to tell who they <em>are</em>?” Harry felt a sinking feeling at that, remembering the question he had tried to ask Terry before they ran out to get a bottle of brandy for a toast. “Is it someone I know?”</p>
<p>“If you didn’t know them, it would hardly matter much if I told you their name,” Terry pointed out.</p>
<p>“Oh God,” Harry said. “<em>Why</em> can’t you tell—”</p>
<p>“Because they asked me not to tell anyone,” Terry cut in firmly. “So I haven’t, because, as we’ve established, contrary to popular belief, my word <em>is</em> good. And if for some reason, I decided to break a promise and tell you, maybe you’d be fine with it, but need I remind you, you’re the bloke I just raked over the coals for not knowing how to keep your mouth shut. Plus you’ve got no poker face, bruv. So it would be just a matter of time before certain gingers in your life’d find out and have a fit.”</p>
<p>That sinking feeling in the pit of Harry’s chest grew. “Boot,” he said, “you aren’t having an affair with <em>Hermione</em>, are you?”</p>
<p>Terry’s already-wide eyes went wider at that. “Oh. Oh, Merlin fuck. Harry, I… I’d do a lot of things, maybe, but I’d never fuck with someone’s relationship like that. I’ve no interest in being a homewrecker or someone’s piece on the side.”</p>
<p>Harry let out a long sigh of relief at that. “But it sounds like you’re letting someone keep you a secret,” he pointed out.</p>
<p>“That’s different,” Terry said. “I can’t hurt anyone but myself by agreeing to that here, with this. And I understand why. I get it, I’m not stupid. You have to maintain your respectability. You don’t want your reputation at risk. I know what it would look like, someone like <em>that</em> wanting to get mixed up with something like <em>me</em>.” Terry finished the last of their brandy and set their cup down a little too emphatically. “So it makes <em>sense</em>—it makes <em>perfect</em> sense—asking we keep this whole thing under our hat.”</p>
<p>“That’s a lousy thing to ask of you,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“No. It would be a lousy thing to ask of <em>you</em>.” Terry glanced across the room at the bottle of brandy left on the side table by the dishes, then at the quarter-full bottle of firewhiskey on the mantle, but didn’t get up. Harry handed Terry his own almost-untouched cup, and Terry smiled a faint thanks in return. “But you have to remember, Harry love, I’m <em>not</em> you. I’m a Knockturn Alley guttersnipe of unsavory pedigree, with a dodgy reputation and no prospects to speak of, who’s unfit for polite society, who smokes and drinks and gets high, who’s got more skeletons in their cupboard than most, who’s coarse and unpolished and <em>much</em> too queer. I ain’t got grounds to hope for more than I deserve from someone entitled to so much better than me.”</p>
<p>Something flashed in Harry’s eyes. Terry had seen it before, though never before directed at them. It was that righteous protective fury meant for the people he cared about. This was a gentler version of that look; at its strongest, it explained how so many of his friends could follow him into battle without hesitation.</p>
<p>“That’s not bloody <em>fair</em>, Boot, and you of all people ought to know you should demand better of someone than to treat you like—like you’re the things you said you are. You, of <em>all people</em> should—”</p>
<p>Terry put a hand on Harry’s shoulder to stop him. “Harry, just… Let’s not, all right? Don’t make the best thing in me life make me feel bad for how <em>happy</em> I am. ‘Cause I <em>am</em>, I’m made so happy by this, so let me be happy, yeah? Let me say things about how kind they treat me when we’re together, how good they are to talk to, how close they can keep up to me in an intellectual debate and how much they enjoy the fact I ain’t going to make it <em>easy</em> for them to do. How their face lights up like Christmas about the things they care about, even if other people might think them bookish and uncool for how much they love the things they love. For how much they enjoy me loving the bookish uncool things what <em>I </em>love. For how good the sex is. For how rare it is that I can find me a person I can <em>truly</em> say that about, who can truly give me the things I ask for and do what I need them to do for me, who I can trust to actually even <em>ask</em> for that in the first place, and then takes care of me after.”</p>
<p>Harry's brow was furrowed as he tried to untangle some of what Terry had just implied, without quite having the nerve to ask Terry to elaborate.</p>
<p>Terry chuckled as they read the unasked question on Harry’s face. “Oh, hell, it’s nothing <em>shocking</em>,” they said. “Or even that specific, really. Just a generalized sort of… need for surrender.” They gave Harry an impish look, eyes bright, as they pulled the letter from their cardigan pocket and unfolded it. “Want to hear something?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded automatically, curiosity winning out against any other better judgement.</p>
<p>Terry cleared their throat the way Binns used to do before reading some dry quote from centuries ago. “‘I bought some silk rope for you,’” they read, “‘in a shade of red I imagine looking so pretty against your pale skin, my lovely. I’ve studied the book you lent me and have some ideas for how I might tie you up if you are able to come tonight—’” Terry stopped, catching the wide-eyed unblinking look on Harry’s face. “Sorry. Too much information for you, bruv?”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head, a little too vehemently, a blush creeping over his cheeks. “No. No, it’s not. I don’t mind hearing, if you want to tell me.”</p>
<p>Terry looked at him with a hint of new respect, but just shrugged a little and skimmed over the next few lines before saying, “Anyway, it just all goes on to promise to spank me ‘til me arse is as red as the new silk rope. Even if he does ruin the mood a bit by adding a footnote to tell me that’s hyperbole, like I needed to be reassured.” They looked down at the paper in their hand with that expression on their face again, almost too vulnerable in its soft open fondness.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat. “And then what?” He hadn’t meant to ask that; it had slipped out before he could think.</p>
<p>He was fairly certain he didn’t want the things Terry described. But they felt somehow like a small window into a place he’d never let himself look before. A place where there were more options for his life than the ones he’d chosen long ago, without considering the existence of any others.</p>
<p>“And then what?” Terry repeated. Their eyebrows were raised in slight surprise, but their tone was gentle. “What do <em>you</em> imagine would come next?”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Harry said, looking at his hands and picking at a hangnail. “You’re right. I was out of line—”</p>
<p>“Did I say that? Harry love, ain’t you never talked about this sort of thing with a friend before?”</p>
<p>Harry gave Terry an odd look, as though that was a foolish thing to ask. “Did I ever talk to Ron about my sex life with his <em>little sister</em>?”</p>
<p>“Fair ‘nough. But you’ve got other friends.” Terry contemplated the small puzzled shifts playing out in the open book of Harry’s eyes. “You <em>really</em> don’t like letting others in to the secret parts of yourself, do you.” Shaking their head, they refolded their letter and slid it back into their pocket. “Anyway, I’ve finally learned to be particular about who I trust with me safety like that.” They were quietly thoughtful for only the briefest moment at that statement, but then gave Harry one of their wide open smiles and said, “And now? Now I get <em>letters</em>. ‘Course, I wrote back that I currently got the Boy Wonder at mine for a dressing-down over what he done, but maybe tomorrow I can make it up at half-past eleven in a particular Ministry supply cupboard that don’t get much <em>other</em> use.”</p>
<p>“Wait,” Harry said, “does <em>everyone</em> in the Ministry know of my suspension?”</p>
<p>“Oh, gods no. Are you kidding. They’ve kept a real tight lid on <em>that</em>. The last thing they want is the word to get out that Harry Potter’s been suspended from the Aurors, let alone <em>why</em>. Let alone he was pulled off field work a good while ago now. Let alone they’ve got themselves into this Draco Malfoy mess. And <em>Harry Potter</em> went to see him. Can you imagine what would happen if the Prophet got even a whiff of <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>“But your person, he knows.”</p>
<p>“Yes. ‘Cause I told him. ‘Cause I know that I can trust him completely to do what’s in your best interest and keep his mouth shut.”</p>
<p>“What about <em>your</em> best interest?”</p>
<p>Terry shot him a look. “Cor, you’re a stubborn one. What did I say about not pressing that line with me?” They handed Harry’s teacup of brandy back to him and said, “About your bisexuality then.”</p>
<p>Harry took a second sip of the apricot brandy, regretted it, and put the cup down. “I thought we were done with that.”</p>
<p>“Oh, definitely not. Just got distracted along the way, as I’m wont to do, like a magpie spotting bits of foil. But if you’d rather, we could go back to how you so selfishly and stupidly fucked up at work, because I’ve <em>plenty</em> more to say on that as well.”</p>
<p>Harry laughed a little. “No thanks, I think I’m good. I’ve had enough of <em>that</em> for one night.”</p>
<p>“Agree to disagree,” Terry said lightly, as if commenting on the weather. Standing up, they went back over to the mantel for the firewhiskey bottle and poured themself another drink. They returned to sit beside Harry, turned to favor him with their full attention. “So we know that <em>I’m</em> ecstatic for you, but what do <em>you</em> think about this?”</p>
<p>Harry turned the teacup around and around in his hands, not actually wanting to drink more of its contents, but being glad for having something to do with his hands. “I guess I don’t,” he said. “Think about it, I mean. Or I try not to.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I can tell,” Terry said. “Why not?”</p>
<p>“I feel like you think you already know the answer to that.”</p>
<p>Terry just cocked their head to the side and waited patiently, with a slight encouraging raise of their eyebrows.</p>
<p>“I… I dunno,” Harry said. “Or—No, I do know. It just seemed like too much when I first—when I first realized. Being just a kid in school and dealing with all the things I had no choice <em>but</em> to deal with. All the saving-the-world, return-of-Voldemort bullshit, of course, but also just… Just having to go about every day knowing that there were so many people out there—people I’d never met, people who didn’t know me—having opinions on what I ought to be like, before I even had a chance to figure that out for myself.” Harry cupped his brandy in one hand to chew at the thumbnail of the other hand. “I <em>knew</em> I liked Ron and Hermione, because they didn’t count as <em>people</em>, you know? Like you’re just <em>you</em> with friends like that, and you have room to breathe. I <em>knew</em> I liked flying, I liked Quidditch, because nothing else seemed to matter when I was up on a broomstick; it all just fell away and the only things up in the air were things that made <em>sense</em>. My friends. Quidditch. Defense Against the Dark Arts, sometimes. When it was any good. Maybe that’s about it. There so few things I was <em>certain</em> of, see?” Harry made a sound like a chuckle, but much too rueful. “I <em>was</em> certain that I hated the way people like Rita Skeeter tried to pry into my love life to sell papers, as if I was a teen pop star and not an awkward prat who could barely ask a girl to Yule Ball. I remember being mortified every time some story got printed about which girl I might fancy, so I couldn’t even start to imagine what would happen if there was ever any reason for anyone to know… anything else. Not that there was much of anything else <em>to</em> know, mind. Until Ginny, the entire history of my Hogwarts love life was a truly disastrous kiss before Christmas followed by an even more disastrous Valentine’s Day date.”</p>
<p>“Cho Chang?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>Terry considered Harry, head tilted to the side. “So you knew you were bisexual back when we were at Hogwarts?”</p>
<p>Harry nodded.</p>
<p>“Who?”</p>
<p>“Who what?”</p>
<p>“In me <em>own</em> experience,” Terry said, “usually a person has a <em>who</em>. The first person you realized you felt something about, even if nothing ever come of it.”</p>
<p>“Who was yours?”</p>
<p>“Oz Pritchard. I were eight, him twelve, he tried—and failed—to cast an <em>Episkey</em> on a black eye I’d got to make it better. I remember he put his hand on my face so gentle and careful I halfway hoped I’d get hit again soon, just for the chance for that to happen again.” Terry took a sip of his drink. “’Course, he got caught for doing magic unsupervised on summer hols, I got hit again plenty, and I never told him about me stupid childhood crush ‘cause he had no need to know. But we ain’t talking about <em>me</em>, are we?”</p>
<p>Harry looked resolutely at his own lap. “Oliver Wood.”</p>
<p>Harry could feel Terry’s grin without even having to look up at their face. “Don’t look so bloody <em>ashamed</em>, Harry love. Wood was fit as hell, with those shoulders, that <em>voice</em>, those <em>arms</em>.” They gave an appreciative two-note whistle with a cheeky wink to Harry, which made Harry smile despite himself. “And? Should I just assume you were like everyone in our year with a pulse, and so you <em>too</em> wanted a snog with Seamus?”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head. “I reckon living in the same room with him day in and day out took the shine off that notion before I ever even knew to consider it,” he said. “But I guess… I guess the only other bloke I may have <em>liked</em> like that when we were in school was Cedric.”</p>
<p>“Ah. Oh.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Terry said. “I’m so sorry. And I imagine that must have made the whole thing with Cho…”</p>
<p>“Even more awkward?” Harry finished for them, and nodded. “I think part of it was, she was so broken up about it and could feel her sadness so hard, and I just felt—I felt <em>numb</em>, and I thought that meant I wasn’t all that upset after all. Because I just felt all empty and shut-down inside about that whole night. Except when I didn’t.” Harry took a drink of brandy. “Except when I don’t,” he corrected himself.</p>
<p>Terry licked their lips in thought, brow knit. With slow care in each word, they asked, “Have you ever talked to someone? You know. About that.”</p>
<p>“You mean like therapy?” Harry grimaced. “Don’t <em>you</em> start in on that line too,” he said. “I get enough of that from my friends already, thanks.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” was all Terry said in response.</p>
<p>“Don’t you have any other nosy embarrassing questions to ask me about blokes I may or may not have fancied?”</p>
<p>Terry paused for a second, considering how transparently desperate Harry was to change the subject, but decided they had pressed him on enough things already for one night. So instead, they just said, “So Wood and Cedric and Cho and Ginny? That’s it? Nobody else?”</p>
<p>“That I remember, yes.”</p>
<p>“Ah, so you were into healthy sporty types, all wholesome and hale and hardy,” Terry observed. “Rather than—for example—some pale fragile slip of a thing what looks like he might crumple aristocratically in a stiff breeze.”</p>
<p>Harry shot Terry a puzzled look. “Like <em>who</em>?”</p>
<p>“Just as a hypothetical random example,” Terry replied. “Or I also can’t imagine you would have ever taken much notice of a bookish freak with chipped nail varnish and all the musculature of an overcooked noodle.”</p>
<p>“Hang on,” Harry said. “Did you just call yourself a freak?”</p>
<p>“If the shoe fits,” Terry said. “That’s what Ravenclaw was, wasn’t it? Just a strange brew of freaks and swots whose only trait in common was thinking too much.” They grinned. “I notice that’s the only bit of that description you’re questioning.”</p>
<p>Harry tried to figure out whether he was supposed to argue the rest of Terry’s assessment of themself, but wasn’t sure he could lie well enough to convince the too-perceptive person sitting beside him.</p>
<p>Terry, however, was chuckling at Harry’s hesitation. “I’m just winding you up, bruv,” they said. “I’m well aware I look like I’d lose an arm wrestling contest with a mop. Ain’t got delusions of being able to compete with Oliver Wood’s divine biceps.”</p>
<p>They spread their arms out and shrugged with a wry <em>it-is-what-it-is</em> smile.</p>
<p>Terry was the sort of slender-soft that more than anything else coasted on their naturally slight frame, on the precarious blessing of a barely-still-young metabolism, on the Ritalin side effects that hadn’t yet reached their stasis. They lived off sugary cereal and greasy baskets of chips; they lived off chocolate biscuits nicked from Harry’s desk drawer; off pick-and-mix and white bread and over-sweetened coffee and occasional hash brownies when their source had a whim to bake them; they lived off Muggle pop, off lager, off Firewhiskey; they lived off gravy-filled pasties with thick buttery crust sold in the shop they’d been haunting since the old days when Mrs. Pritchard almost never asked for money, because they were the Boot boy, recently orphaned and living alone, seventeen years old, turning tricks and cozying up to Death Eaters and too much a tragedy to want to take anything more away from.</p>
<p>“No, Boot,” Harry replied, a moment too late, “you’re perfectly—”</p>
<p>“Not your type,” Terry finished for him. “That’s fine. You’re more into the masc beefcake type from what I gather. When it comes to blokes, anyhow.” They shrugged. “It’s okay, Harry; you don’t owe the rest of us a <em>thing</em>. That’s the real message here, ain’t it? That you should like what you like, and not be afraid to like it.”</p>
<p>“The rest of us,” Harry repeated, a question in his voice. “Wait, no, hang on. That’s not <em>fair</em>. You ask me who I fancied at Hogwarts, and when I tell you, you sound like you’re accusing me of—I dunno—being <em>shallow</em> for having had a couple silly schoolyard crushes on Oliver Wood and Cedric Diggory over a <em>dozen years ago</em> now.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean to—No, you’re right. It did come off a bit like that.” Terry sighed and said, “Fucking hell, Harry, that’s on me; reckon I should’ve known better than to start in there, ‘cause I ought to have learned by now that I can still be a bit touchy. Y’know, that whole thing we talked about. Being the one people used for practice so’s they could go off and ask out the people they <em>actually</em> liked, getting to hear so many people confide in me who they fancied and the answer never being me.”</p>
<p>“Er, well, there was Blaise… ?”</p>
<p>“Right. Really won the fucking boyfriend lottery <em>there</em>, didn’t I?” Terry rubbed a frustrated hand over their eyes. “Sorry. Sorry, no, you’re right. That’s all got nothing to do with you. <em>You</em> never did anything like that in school, gods bless you.”</p>
<p>“Anyway, you’re wrong,” Harry went on impetuously. “Your whole thing about how I’d only like manly blokes who belong in fitness magazines, or whatever it is you think of me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no?” Terry asked, a new interest in their eyes. “Who else caught your eye then? Since Wood and Cedric, I mean. More recently. Anyone in the last decade?”</p>
<p>“I’ve been <em>married</em> for the last decade.”</p>
<p>“So? You ain’t been dead. Or when they’re all partnered up, do monogamists truly <em>actually</em> not even <em>notice</em> the very existence of other attractive people out in the world?”</p>
<p>“No, I’m not saying that, but—Wait, you say that like you’re not… ?”</p>
<p>“Into monogamy?” Terry finished for him. “Nah, not wired for that. Yet another reason I’m probably too much to ask of a partner.” They looked a little wistful at that, but then shook their head as if to clear it. “But there’s been nobody? Not even, say, through work?”</p>
<p>Harry gave an amused <em>ha</em> at the very notion. “You couldn’t pay me to sleep with an Auror.”</p>
<p>“Me neither,” Terry agreed cheerfully, “despite Sprewit’s concern I might be stupid enough to risk a vice sting for a few Galleons.”</p>
<p>Harry let out a little choked laugh and took a drink from his cup to hide it, which just made him cough more.</p>
<p>“Doesn’t have to be an Auror anyway,” Terry continued. “Could be someone else you’ve met in the course of your duties.”</p>
<p>“Like <em>who</em>?” The question came out a little too fast and a little too sharp. Harry fixed his gaze on his own lap.</p>
<p>Terry reached over, placing their fingertips gently along Harry’s jawline to nudge him to meet Terry’s eyes.</p>
<p>“Harry,” Terry said. “Why are we having this conversation now?”</p>
<p>“Because you forced me to,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Only because you started it. You’re the one what opened this can of worms,” Terry reminded him. “And from the timeline as I understand it, you came out just once to Ginny, the person you’d been married to for a good while by then, and then neither of you ever spoke of it again. And that was years ago.” Harry nodded warily in confirmation. “But then you suddenly come out to your cousin after work Friday, before you leave for the States on your now-not-so-secret mission. Now you’re having this conversation with me. So all I can wonder is: What’s the one big out-of-the-ordinary thing that happened in your life that marks the middle of all this?”</p>
<p>“I’d still be bi even if I hadn’t been made to go see Malfoy, you know.”</p>
<p>“But would you have been content to continue not letting it <em>matter</em>, the way you kept insisting it didn’t a few minutes ago?”</p>
<p>“I—I don’t know what you think you’re asking me.”</p>
<p>“What are you afraid I’m asking?” Terry paused, thinking for a moment. “Or what do you <em>want</em> me to be asking? ‘Cause I suspect those both come down to the same thing, don’t they?”</p>
<p>“I never had a crush on Malfoy at Hogwarts,” Harry blurted out, the words coming out forceful and resolute. He looked at Terry with his chin tilted upward, resolute and certain of himself on this matter. “He was—Merlin—he was <em>awful</em>, you <em>must</em> remember that. Mean and bigoted and full of this horrid <em>spite</em>, treating me and my friends like old gum on the sole of his shoe. All casual cruelty and sneering superiority… Whatever small good points he <em>may</em> have had back then could never even start to make up for all that <em>awfulness</em>.”</p>
<p>“But you told me he’s changed now.”</p>
<p>“He… Yes. I did say that. He has.”</p>
<p>Terry sipped their firewhiskey, silently inviting Harry to elaborate.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter though, does it,” Harry said. “He’s an ocean away and he’s hardly my biggest fan still. He’s rather angry with me right now for the same reasons you are; I think he feels betrayed.”</p>
<p><em>You idiot</em>, Terry wanted to say. <em>Nobody ever feels betrayed because they were let down by someone they </em>don’t<em> care about</em>.</p>
<p>“What doesn’t matter?” Terry asked.</p>
<p>“I didn’t come out to <em>him</em>, anyway.”</p>
<p>“I’m really feeling like you skipped a key point somewhere here, bruv.”</p>
<p>“Like <em>what</em>?” Harry retorted, a little defensive and snappish.</p>
<p>“You tell me.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing <em>to</em> tell,” Harry said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”</p>
<p>Terry quelled the urge to roll their eyes at how transparently untrue that was. “Look at this way,” they said, “you said that you tried to ask Draco some shite nosy question about how he knew he were gay, and he asked if you were really asking about <em>him</em>.”</p>
<p>“Gods, why did I even tell you that,” Harry muttered.</p>
<p>“So I reckon Draco already has a pretty strong suspicion that your arrow might not fly as straight as you’d like to pretend,” Terry said. “Even if he ain’t too keen to admit it to himself.”</p>
<p>“Why not?” Harry asked. “It’s not like it would make any difference to <em>him</em>.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s too much for him to hope for, innit?” Terry came back.</p>
<p>Harry started, leaning back and blinking wide green eyes at Terry. “<em>What</em>? What are you talking about? You don’t know what you’re saying, Boot.”</p>
<p>“Why not? What am I saying?”</p>
<p>Harry set his cup on the coffee table and flexed his fingers halfway in and out of fists, feeling jittery with helplessness. “Look, Boot, you’ve had quite a lot to drink…”</p>
<p>Terry shot him a look that was equal parts irritated and puzzled. “Not particularly, no, I haven’t.”</p>
<p>Harry felt that was something someone ought to press further, but didn’t think he was allowed to be the one to do that. Not now, not yet. So instead, he just said, “Either you’re talking rubbish, or you just let slip something by accident, which is so <em>entirely</em> unlike you that I can’t help but think—”</p>
<p>“Weren’t an accident,” Terry said. “I know what I said. I <em>always</em> know what I said. But I ain’t saying anything more. Just… be careful with him, Harry love. It’s hard, especially for a guarded distrustful thing like him, putting so much faith in Harry Potter, knowing what a risk that can be.”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t respond to that right away. Brow knit in thought, he fidgeted with his hands, picking at his short nails, and bit his lower lip. “What do I do?” he asked, quiet and serious. “No. Wait, that’s not what I meant to ask.” He looked at Terry, his green eyes blazing with that stubborn fearless Gryffindor determination. “I’m going to find a way to make it right for him. For you. You just need to keep an ear out for anything you can find out about what they plan to do next, and tell me everything you learn.”</p>
<p>It was nearly impossible to resist the fierce certainty in his voice. <em>This is why we laid our lives down for you</em>, Terry thought. <em>‘Cause you made us listen and believe when you sounded like that—</em>just<em> like that—with all that goodness and bravery. And reckless overconfident pigheadedness</em>.</p>
<p>“No,” Terry said. “Sorry, bruv.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean, <em>no</em>?”</p>
<p>Terry took a deep breath. “I told you,” they said. “You’ve proven yourself a liability. You’ve made a right mess of everything we trusted to you, and I ain’t gonna be the one responsible for mucking things up even more by letting your impulsive idiot arse loose on things. What if I get in tomorrow and find they’ve drawn up new terms to fuck Draco over three ways to Sunday? And I pass that along to you? What would you do <em>then</em>? You’d storm the gates, you’d go back to bleedin’ <em>Maine</em> to play knight-in-shining-armor, you’d get yourself <em>fired</em>. And then you’d fuck-all use to anyone then.” Terry sighed, with an apologetic resolute shake of their head. “No, Harry, I can’t be the one to sink the whole ship by letting <em>that</em> happen. I can’t take that responsibility. I’ll tell you what I need you to know, when you need to know it. Nothing more, nothing less. I promise you that much.”</p>
<p>“Who says <em>you</em> get to be the one to make that call?” Harry demanded.</p>
<p>“Me,” Terry said. “And Hermione, if that means you’ll listen. She agreed this was the best path forward with you. She trusts me to know how to read the Aurors for what should and shouldn’t be done.”</p>
<p>“And you can trust <em>me</em>,” Harry said. “Both of you can, I promise.”</p>
<p>“Prove it,” Terry replied.</p>
<p>“How?”</p>
<p>“Shut up and follow orders,” Terry told him. “Now go on home, I’ve got a lot to figure out yet tonight. I’ll be in touch when I ought to be. ‘Til then, just… I dunno, enjoy not having to come into our awful little office to spend all day chewing on pens and moving papers around on your desk?” A soft smile passed over Terry’s face and they gave Harry’s hand a squeeze. “Take care of yourself, bruv. Maybe take this time to—”</p>
<p>“To figure my shit out?” Harry finished for him.</p>
<p>Terry laughed. “I would have said it nicer, but, yeah, pretty much. But get on out now.”</p>
<p> “Fine, I’m going, I’m <em>going</em>.”</p>
<p>Shooing him towards the door, Terry said, “Don’t Disapparate from here—I need you to at least make it back to the lift down the hall first. Can’t deal with Sprewit thinking I’ve had the Boy Who Lived for an overnight on top of everything <em>else</em> you’ve left me to deal with.”</p>
<p>Terry watched him leave. They almost wished they hadn’t learned that Harry had a fresh new tangle of feelings for Draco Malfoy, feelings nobody else would know to factor into this whole mess of a situation. They wished they could turn to Hermione, as a friend with a good head on her shoulders, who had known Harry far longer and closer than they had, and ask, <em>What should I do with this information?</em></p>
<p>But it wasn’t Terry’s secret to tell.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning from "Jerusalem" by Dan Bern.</p>
<p>Next chapter: The plot thickens.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Thirteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>And here I sit, hand on the telephone</em><br/>
<em>Hearing a voice I’d known</em><br/>
<em>A couple of lightyears ago</em><br/>
<em>Heading straight for a fall</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Harry got back to his flat, he noticed a new unread message window on his left-open laptop, sent only a few minutes before his return.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> hullo harry!</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> heard u told the min o magic they can go tae fuck</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry studied the words for a long moment before replying, trying to figure out how to respond to the very idea that he might have told the <em>entire Ministry of Magic</em> where they could stick it. And after his conversation with Terry, feeling relieved and grateful to be reminded once again that he felt nothing anymore like the childish twelve-year-old butterflies he’d carried in his stomach for his former Quidditch captain, all those years ago.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> hi oliver</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> i… er, didn’t really do that….?</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> just pissed off the aurors really</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> not the WHOLE GOVERNMENT</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> thats a start</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> good lad</p>
<p>Harry frowned, unsure where to start with the several questions he had fighting for attention in his head: <em>What’s </em>your<em> complaint with the Ministry? What did they do that </em>you<em> know about?</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> who told you?</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> perce</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> figured he could hae understated a wee bit as he does</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> u know perce</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> he gets so uptight and shirty when folk start breaking rules and like</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> wait</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> how did PERCY know already?</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> oh hm</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> well</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry thanked whatever small part of him that stopped him from saying, <em>Wait, you’re still friends with </em>Percy<em>? </em>Still<em>?</em></p>
<p>Guiltily, he thought how he never tried too hard to be friends with Percy in any real way himself, and had far too long ago let all the effort in keeping in touch lay entirely with Oliver.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> fuck if i know</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> hes a right nosy bugger tho</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> also got a big important dept head title</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> so maybe they tell him things</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> you’re right, yeah</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> plus yer Harry Fucking Potter</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> yer top shelf office news mate</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> ha. sigh.</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> well</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> maybe not for long</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> if i’m lucky</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry froze at what he’d just typed. He hadn’t planned to admit that aloud to himself yet, let alone to Oliver Wood.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> THAT fuckin done wi the whole place?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry hesitated, unsure how to answer that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> don’t think it was really the gig for me</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> if we’re being honest</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> dunno what IS, but turns out it wasn’t this</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was a short pause.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> heard monstrose reserve was in looking fer a seeker</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry imagined for a moment having the chance to play Quidditch again. He could remember being so sure he envied Ginny getting to make her career on a broomstick with the feel of wind on her face and the sound of cheering distant and warm below.</p>
<p>And yet, picturing it now, he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel the enthusiasm he would have been so sure he would have felt at Oliver’s suggestion.</p>
<p>At most, it seemed like a pleasant suggestion, unserious but kind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> ha, thanks mate</p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> but i reckon my flying days are over</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry:</strong> harry. dinna lie to me.</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry: </strong>canna keep a seeker like THAT off a broom</p>
<p><strong>NewScottishGentry: </strong>stays in yer blood for LIFE mate</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. All these years later, and Oliver still talked to him about Quidditch like a religious calling. He tried to think of something to say in response, something friendly and teasing, something that might be able to mean, <em>I’m sorry I’ve been so bad at keeping my friends.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Let me try to be better at this.</em>
</p>
<p>As he thought, his mobile began to ring softly in the pocket of the peacoat he’d thrown in an unceremonious crumple on his couch.</p>
<p>When he dug it out and saw the number on the display screen, he felt his heart jump into his throat and stop beating for a moment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>redandgold91:</strong> hang on have a phone call i need to take</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With a deep breath, he flipped his phone open and answered it, sinking slowly to sit on his couch with the perfect nervous posture of a student being given detention.</p>
<p>He didn’t even have a chance take in a breath to get ready for a <em>hello</em> before Malfoy started in: “As much as I’d truly <em>love</em> to be not speaking to you right now, I find myself in the regrettable position of having to be the one to phone <em>you</em>, because I haven’t heard a <em>word</em> since you called to tell me that everything was <em>not</em>, in fact, going according to plan. Thanks to you.”</p>
<p>“Did you practice that line before phoning me?”</p>
<p>“Shut up, Potter. You’re in no place to get smart with me, not unless you come bearing good news.”</p>
<p>“Unless I come bearing—? <em>You’re</em> the one who called <em>me</em>,” Harry replied.</p>
<p>“Because it’s been two full days and I had <em>assumed</em> you might have something new to tell me,” Malfoy said, sounding possibly even more irritated than he had when Harry first answered the phone. “I’d like to believe you’re still invested enough in this to care about what’s going to happen to me. Of course, I suppose I may be mistaken.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t give me <em>that</em>. You <em>know</em> I care what happens to you.”</p>
<p>“I do not. The historical evidence for <em>that</em> is rocky at best.” Malfoy sighed a drawn-out aggravated sigh, and added, “Granted, you more than earned the right not to care, as we’ve discussed—Death Eater, various and sundry heinous acts, attempted murder, reprehensible ideology, et cetera, et cetera. So if you’ve decided you’re not at the point of forgiveness after all, I suppose I can understand and accept that, but at the very least, have the chutzpah and basic decency to <em>tell</em> me that you’ve decided to hang me out to dry.”</p>
<p>“What the <em>fuck</em>, Malfoy,” Harry said, throwing himself onto the couch and shoving a hand through his thick dark curls. “I’m not hanging <em>anyone</em> out to dry, least of all <em>you</em>. Give me <em>some</em> fucking credit, all right? No, hang on, don’t start in again; let me get a word in edgewise. I just—I don’t have any news for you. Not really. The only person I’ve got with any eyes on the Aurors is Boot, and I’ve just come ‘round from their place, where they told me the Aurors haven’t let slip <em>anything</em> they’ve been able to pick up. And if <em>Terry Boot</em> can’t catch even a hint of which way the wind’s blowing on this, I don’t know who <em>could</em>. They seem to think there might be a chance that even the<em> Aurors</em> don’t know what they’re doing yet; maybe they’re taking their time, weighing their options, waiting things out to see what happens. That’s possible, that’s definitely <em>possible</em>, but that <em>also</em> sounds like a load of rubbish to me, to be honest—I know Abernathy. I know he’s not a patient man. He’s—”</p>
<p>“I know what he’s like,” Malfoy interrupted. “I imagine he’s described himself as ‘a man of action’ more than once, without a trace of irony.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so you’ve heard the pep talks he gives at staff meetings?” Harry joked, a little bitterly, remembering a moment too late that he and Malfoy didn’t have that kind of friendship, and also Malfoy was still cross with him.</p>
<p>Still, Malfoy let out a chuckle that he turned almost convincingly into a cough. “Don’t you deflect this. This isn’t something you can just <em>decide</em> not to worry about. Or, rather, <em>you</em> can decide not to worry about this if you choose, but <em>I</em> don’t have that luxury, Harry, so if you could please bear that in mind when you—”</p>
<p>“There it goes again.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You calling me Harry. You did that a few times in Maine, if you’ll remember me mentioning.”</p>
<p>Malfoy took a long deep breath then, conveying all too clearly the impression of someone counting to ten inside his head to stop himself from wanting to strangle the person on the other end of the line. “Yes,” he said, “because in America, they don’t call people by their surnames as a matter of course, so from conversations over the past few years, one does get used to hearing others call you by your first name.”</p>
<p>“You’ve been talking about me? To who, Merv and Tony?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re my heroic arch-nemesis who was <em>there</em> for every stupid step of my stupid life back in England, hanging about, being idiotic and perfect and insufferable. Bit hard to give even the highlights version of my past without mentioning you,” Malfoy explained. “Believe me, I’ve <em>tried</em>.”</p>
<p>“D’you want me to call you Draco?” Harry could hear the doubt and hesitation in his voice; he felt like he should offer, but wasn’t sure he could imagine actually <em>doing</em> it.</p>
<p>“I would rather die,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>He was twisting the cord of his phone around one finger. It was a big clunky Bakelite behemoth that he’d gotten in a secondhand store, sure at the time that this was what all Muggle home telephones looked like, from pictures he’d seen in books. But there was a certain comfort in the feeling of hefting it off the bedside table to cocoon it beside him in the rumple of winter blankets on his bed, its big receiver cradled between his shoulder and cheek, the long curl of cord weaving through his fingers.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Harry was saying. “Good. I mean. No. No, go back to what you said, before you called me Harry again. You said I could just choose not to worry about you. And before <em>that</em>, when I answered the phone, you said I might have just hung you out to dry, like you’re just some <em>problem</em> I’m handing off without even a second thought or backward glance.”</p>
<p>“Oh, please, I don’t care if you <em>have</em>,” Malfoy lied, “I just care that you have the common courtesy to let me <em>know</em>.”</p>
<p>“Seriously? You’re accusing me of just <em>forgetting</em> about you,” Harry said, “when I haven’t thought of anything <em>else</em>. I’ve thought of nothing <em>but</em> you from the moment I got to Maine, and you seem to believe that I’m capable of just—not caring about you. As if that was even possible.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, of course. So sorry for doubting your tireless work ethic, in the face of having been told that you basically don’t even <em>have</em> one anymore.”</p>
<p>“I’m not talking about my <em>job</em>, Malfoy, and you know it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy wanted to ask, <em>Then what </em>are<em> you talking about?</em></p>
<p>But he was afraid the answer would be him.</p>
<p>And afraid the answer <em>wouldn’t</em> be.</p>
<p>“Well, I <em>am</em> talking about your job,” Malfoy said. <em>Was he really? </em>“Your job and everything that goes with it—the Aurors, my property, the overall unknown level of personal danger I may be in—<em>those</em> are the only things that matter to me right now.”</p>
<p>“That matters to <em>me too</em>, damn it,” Harry snapped back. “I just meant that—it doesn’t matter because it’s my<em> job</em>, not now, not with this. I’m not worrying about the correct course of action, according to official regulations and protocol. I’m not trying to come out of this with my professional reputation intact, or with newfound respect from my coworkers, or a fucking <em>commendation</em> from fucking <em>Abernathy</em>. Fuck my <em>career</em>, Malfoy. That’s not what matters to me here.”</p>
<p>“Then what does?” Malfoy replied, his voice dropping to a quiet cautious place, all the anger and bite gone.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Christ.” Malfoy took a deep breath and pulled one of the blankets over his face, like hiding his face an ocean away over the phone might make this easier to ask: “If it’s not your career that’s at stake for you here, what <em>is</em> at stake that you care about?” He paused. “I’m not asking again a third way.”</p>
<p>Harry swallowed and bent forward, elbows resting on his knees, as if they were having this conversation face-to-face and he was leaning in to give that question full attention. “That’s not the real question you want to ask,” he said, “but I’m not going to answer what I think you <em>might</em> actually mean by that. If I’m wrong… If I’m wrong, I’ll just seem a presumptuous ass, won’t I.” He sighed. “I don’t know why you have to be like that, never just saying what you mean right out.”</p>
<p>“Congratulations, you’ve finally picked up on the difference between Slytherins and Gryffindors. That’s still not an answer.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Harry said. “Whatever you’re actually asking, it’s all the same: The thing at stake is you.”</p>
<p>There was a short silence on the other end of the line before Malfoy spoke again. When he did, all he said was a barely-audible, “Oh.”</p>
<p>“Was that not what you wanted to hear?”</p>
<p>“What I wanted to hear was the truth,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>“That <em>was</em> the truth.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>Harry waited but Malfoy said nothing else. “<em>And?</em>” he prompted.</p>
<p>“And,” Malfoy repeated.</p>
<p>There were so many easy things to say here, all the snippy invulnerable lines: <em>And of </em>course<em> you feel that way, of </em>course<em> you want someone to play hero for, someone to protect, of </em>course<em> you’re still forever the good-as-gold Gryffindor doing the right thing in the face of adversity, of </em>course<em> you’ll champion any cause at this point just to feel better about your life, to pretend you’re still who you used to think you were, Boy Who Lived Harry Potter Savior of Our Times</em>.</p>
<p>“And.” Malfoy sighed. “And I don’t need you to play the part of a white knight on a silver horse for me. Or maybe I <em>do</em> need it, if that’s the most I can hope for in my corner when this plays out. But it’s not what I <em>want</em>.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I’m doing.”</p>
<p>“What are you doing then? What’s this for? You can’t pretend it’s because we’re <em>friends</em>.”</p>
<p>“Why <em>not</em>?” Harry shot back. “What if I wouldn’t mind being friends with the person I got to know a few days ago?”</p>
<p>“You don’t want to be friends with me, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I can choose for <em>myself</em> who I want to be friends with, thanks.” He knew he sounded angry. He <em>was</em> angry, on his feet now and pacing back and forth across the little sitting room, gesturing with the hand not holding his mobile. As if Malfoy were able to see him, as if he could send his body language through a phone call.</p>
<p>Harry was sure he was missing even more of the conversation from the other direction, only being able to hear Malfoy without seeing him, without being able to try to catch all the little smirks and arches of his eyebrow, the turn of his wrists and flit of his long fingers, all those gestures and tells that hinted at the things that Malfoy didn’t say aloud in actual words.</p>
<p>“You don’t get to tell me that you need my help,” Harry pressed on, “but then say I can’t <em>want</em> to be your friend. You don’t have to want to be mine, that’s <em>fine</em>, that’s your right, but that person in Maine? <em>That</em> person, that barista at a diner, even if he’s called Alfie now—I <em>like</em> that person. He’s a pain in the arse and he’s too proud to accept help even when <em>he’s the one making the call to ask for it</em>, but who cares, who cares, I’ve been told enough times that <em>I’m</em> far from perfect, so you’re… You’re <em>fine</em> this way, Malfoy, as maddening as you are. And you don’t want me to help you just so I can play white knight hero—which I am <em>so far beyond</em> seeking out excuses to do, <em>believe</em> me—but you <em>also</em> don’t want me to help because I care about you. So what the hell <em>do</em> you want from me?”</p>
<p>Harry was sure he could hear Malfoy start to answer a couple of times, stopping short before the first real sound escaped his lips, holding his breath, pausing, trying again, failing again. After a few seconds that stretched like minutes, he said, “I don’t know what I want.”</p>
<p>Each syllable hitched with tentative vulnerability, all the sharpness gone from his voice.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what I want,” Malfoy said again. “I want… I want to not be scared of what’s going to happen to me. I want to not feel so fucking <em>helpless</em> over here, where I can’t <em>do</em> anything but wait blindly for something to happen <em>to</em> me. I want to have some goddamn agency here, Potter, and I want to not have to put my whole fate in the hands of the person who maybe owes me the least mercy in the world.”</p>
<p>“Malfoy…”</p>
<p>“Don’t. You’ve done far more than you owe me already, and I—I think I was hoping if I appealed to your better angels, or made you feel negligent and guilty for fucking up in exactly the way I should have seen coming, then maybe…” He laughed a little hollowly. “But then this whole conversation hasn’t gone as I’d planned, has it? It would seem my manipulative side has gotten rusty from lack of proper use.”</p>
<p>Harry returned Malfoy’s laugh with one of his own. “Malfoy, I hate to break it to you, but your manipulative side was never that subtle, not when it came to…” He paused. “When it came to me.”</p>
<p>“Well. I had to make sure things actually got through that thick Gryffindor skull of yours, didn’t I? If I was too subtle, I’d risk you not even noticing—” He cleared his throat in what he hoped was a suitably dignified manner in the hopes that Harry wouldn’t even notice that sentence being cut short.</p>
<p>“Not even noticing…?” Harry prompted.</p>
<p><em>Damn. So much for Potter’s famous obliviousness</em>.</p>
<p>“Never mind, Potter.”</p>
<p>“Not even noticing <em>you</em>? Was that what you were going to say?” Harry asked. “Because if so, you’ve got to admit it’d be difficult not to notice the person who made a habit of saying loud disparaging things about me whenever I was in earshot, and tormenting all my friends, and making up badges telling the whole school that I stink, and—”</p>
<p>“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Malfoy cut in. “Which really only reinforces <em>my</em> point, that you don’t owe me a shred more than what you’ve already done for me.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I do. Maybe you’re right, maybe I wouldn’t owe a thing to the arrogant prodigy Death Eater who committed a whole laundry list of war crimes and was absolutely bloody <em>unbearable</em> besides. But I want to owe whatever I can to the person I met in Maine on Saturday.”</p>
<p>Carefully, Malfoy asked, “Who was the person you met in Maine?”</p>
<p>“I’m not entirely sure yet,” Harry said. “I just know that I like him loads more than that bastard I knew back at Hogwarts, that’s for sure.”</p>
<p>“Still a bastard, you know,” Malfoy pointed out.</p>
<p>“But one I wouldn’t mind getting to know better,” Harry countered. “<em>That’s</em> the person I care about here. <em>That’s</em> the person I can’t stop thinking about.”</p>
<p>There was such an even certainty in the way Harry told him that. It reminded Malfoy yet again that Harry was always going to be so much braver in so many ways than anyone else he had ever known.</p>
<p>“And not just in the dwelling-on-a-work-assignment-gone-wrong way,” Harry continued, “though there’s been plenty of <em>that</em> too. But I’ve been thinking about the used science and history textbooks on your shelves, your mismatched plates, seeing you working at the diner, the design you poured into my coffee foam; I’ve been thinking about what time it is <em>there</em> while I’m <em>here</em>, what you might be doing, where you might be, what might be happening to you, whether you’re still mad at me, what you’re wearing—”</p>
<p>“What I’m <em>wearing</em>?” Malfoy echoed, a little dazed.</p>
<p>“I—Yes. I don’t know, that’s not the important par—”</p>
<p>“Of course it is! People don’t just casually think about what their random platonic acquaintances might be <em>wearing</em>. That’s a whole entirely different frontier of uncharted territory, one I <em>really</em> don’t think you’re actually intending to voyage into.” Malfoy sighed loudly. “<em>Christ</em>, Potter.”</p>
<p>“I’m not trying to voyage <em>anywhere</em>,” Harry retorted. “I’m trying to give you honest answers to the questions you’re asking of me, and I’ll have you notice that I haven’t asked you <em>anything</em> in return. You’re the one with all the power here—”</p>
<p>“Says the Auror with public opinion and the whole legal system on his side, to the criminal whose fate depends entirely on the charity of said Auror.”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, give that a rest for a second, all right? That’s not what I meant. I meant that I’ll do whatever’s asked of me to help you, and I’m not asking anything of you in return, except <em>maybe</em> you consider trying to trust that I don’t hate you anymore, and <em>maybe</em> you pretend you deserve help without me having to fight to convince you. That’s it. Those are the terms. Believe me when I say I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything. Believe me when I say I’m sorry that I lost my temper and got suspended, and that I know I made it harder for us by doing that. Believe me when I say that I want to help <em>you</em>. Or at least <em>pretend</em> to believe me.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Malfoy said, and Harry could almost hear his wry bittersweet smirk. “I promise to pretend to believe you. How’s that?”</p>
<p>“It’s a start,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Call <em>me</em> next time,” Malfoy said. “Don’t make me chase you down again.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t think so either. Turns out we were both wrong.” There was a small sardonic sound that may have been either a sigh or a laugh. “Turns out I don’t totally hate the person <em>I</em> met last Saturday either.”</p>
<p>Something in Malfoy’s tone made Harry’s heart feel like it jumped to his throat for a moment. The sensation was sudden and unexpected, and he decided he wouldn’t think too hard about it until later. Until he absolutely had to. Until he was unable to produce enough other static in his head to block out that feeling and the terrifying question mark that surrounded it.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Harry managed. “It’s nice not being hated.”</p>
<p>There was a brief pause. “Yeah,” Malfoy agreed quietly. “It is. Good night, Potter.”</p>
<p>“Good night, Malfoy.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Aurors Cormac McLaggen and Danila Dubenich were summoned to the Head Auror’s office at precisely nine o’clock on Thursday morning.</p>
<p>Abernathy summarized the situation to the two of them—Auror Potter’s insubordination, his going behind the Aurors’ back with the help of Hermione Granger in the Minister’s office, Death Eater Malfoy’s unacceptable response—and had passed Malfoy’s letter across his desk to them so they could see for themselves what this had come to.</p>
<p>McLaggen finished reading the letter and passed it to Dubenich. “I see what you mean, sir,” he said.</p>
<p>Abernathy nodded, his ego bolstered by McLaggen’s agreement. “Precisely,” he said. “This situation needs to be remedied, the sooner, the better. So. Gentlemen. How are we going to address this problem?”</p>
<p>Dubenich glanced up from his reading. “It’s Thursday.”</p>
<p>Abernathy fixed him with a stern look. “<em>And</em>?”</p>
<p>“This happened Monday,” Dubenich said.</p>
<p>McLaggen shot him a warning glance. “Of course Head Auror Abernathy wasn’t going to react <em>immediately</em>,” he explained. “You don’t want Malfoy thinking he’s so important that the Auror Department puts his grievances at top priority the second we get them.” He smirked. “Even if we’re not responding to <em>this</em>”—he gestured at the sheets of stationery in Dubenich’s hand—“in the way that he tried to tell us to. Like he’s got <em>any</em> ground to make demands.”</p>
<p>“Very good, Auror McLaggen,” Abernathy said. “We are not at the beck and call of Death Eaters, Auror Dubenich. We would do well to teach him that.”</p>
<p>“What about Auror Potter?” McLaggen asked, an almost-eager interest in his voice. “What’s his involvement here?”</p>
<p>“Nonexistent,” Abernathy said.</p>
<p>“No, I <em>know</em> that, sir. I know you’ve removed him from the entire situation. Very wisely, I might add,” McLaggen said, “although maybe long overdue, in my opinion. But what I meant was: How compromised is he? Does he have any personal loyalties to Malfoy?”</p>
<p>Dubenich looked up from Malfoy’s letter again. “You were in school with the two of them,” he said. “Do you remember there being any basis for that? From the files I’ve studied, I had been led to believe that they thought very little of each other during that period, and then hadn’t been in contact until this… unfortunate situation.”</p>
<p>McLaggen shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “They were always at each other’s throats from what I saw. But it’s also Potter. You know how he is.”</p>
<p>Abernathy nodded again. “I doubt it’s anything to do with Malfoy <em>specifically</em>,” he agreed. “Auror Potter has a known bleeding heart streak, which has been a liability in the past. He’s got a history of falling short of doing his duty—Of failing to do the right thing because it didn’t seem <em>nice</em>.” He didn’t bother to mask the scorn in his voice as he said that.</p>
<p>Abernathy was secure in his belief that they all knew Potter was a thorn in the Department’s side. He knew they all remembered his unreliability in the field, especially after Knockturn Alley.</p>
<p>McLaggen and Dubenich, however, had never caused Abernathy a single real problem between them, and watched their careers rise ever higher since Abernathy’s promotion to Head Auror.</p>
<p>Cormac McLaggen, who was a Gryffindor with a well-connected family in the Ministry, and who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. He had everything in his background and pedigree to be the model of the perfect Auror, and the unwavering commitment to the legacy owed him to back that up. He was handsome and formidable, brickhouse-big with a broad square jaw and thick coarse golden hair.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Danila Dubenich was not so lucky as to have come with all McLaggen’s prepackaged qualities to earn Abernathy’s immediate trust and approval. There was, of course, his Durmstrang background and the faint Eastern European accent he had never quite succeeded in masking. There was his tendency to have a fervent loyalty to rule-following that sometimes got in the way of his ability to follow orders that asked him to bend those rules. There was his too-serious disposition, writ large and indelible on his angular face with strong brows, framed by dark waves of hair.</p>
<p>Abernathy’s preferred McLaggen’s good soldier Gryffindor temperament to Dubenich’s pensive intensity, but even <em>he</em> had to admit that Dubenich was as devoted to the Auror Department as anyone could possibly ask.</p>
<p>“The Nott arrest,” McLaggen was saying. “I know what you mean, sir. We were partnered for that one, if you remember.”</p>
<p>“Hard to forget,” Abernathy muttered.</p>
<p>“I don’t see it being particularly difficult to keep Potter uninvolved in this,” McLaggen said. “He hasn’t been seen or heard from since his suspension, has he?”</p>
<p>Abernathy shook his head. “Thank Merlin for small miracles there.”</p>
<p>“And he wouldn’t have been in touch with Malfoy?” McLaggen asked. “Although he wouldn’t have anything to tell him anyway.”</p>
<p>“Doubtful,” Abernathy said. “You read that letter.”</p>
<p>Dubenich had reached the last page by that point and looked up. “He does certainly seem to think very little of Auror Potter,” he observed. “I don’t imagine he would encourage further contact from someone he refers to as—What was it?” He flipped back to the second page. “Ah. ‘A Ministry of Magic yes-man and near stranger sent to harangue me on your false assumption of a lingering personal connection that I regret to inform you barely existed in the first place and has long ago dried up and blown away completely.’”</p>
<p>“Not one to mince words, is he,” Abernathy commented with dry contempt.</p>
<p>“Always <em>was</em> a hateful little brat,” McLaggen offered, “all the way back to his first year at Hogwarts.”</p>
<p>“So Potter is not a factor,” Abernathy said. “To answer your question about whether or not he may be compromised, Auror McLaggen. Yes, he may well be, by nature of the sort of person he is, but it hardly matters, as he’s been cut out of the picture. Which just leaves us my original question to you two gentlemen: How will this problem be addressed?”</p>
<p>“Swiftly,” McLaggen said. “Without compromise. We need to show Malfoy that the Ministry does <em>not</em> negotiate with Death Eaters.”</p>
<p>Finishing the last line of Malfoy’s letter, Dubenich refolded the stationery pages and passed them back to Abernathy. “Some of his propositions are not entirely unreasonable,” he admitted reluctantly. “And his opinion of the situation may be written fairly, ah, <em>strongly</em>, but as there are no overt threats or libel, I don’t know that we can get much use out of that. After all, we can hardly claim any sort of legal wrongdoing merely out of hurt feelings.”</p>
<p>Abernathy glowered at Dubenich. “You’re damned good at your job, Dubenich, but I’ve warned you time and again that not as many people would have as much patience as I do for that kind of priggishness. Now’s no moment for that.” He turned to McLaggen. “Congratulations, Auror McLaggen. You’ve got the assignment.”</p>
<p>A smug unsurprised smile spread across McLaggen’s face. “Thank you, sir. I’m honored to be trusted with this.”</p>
<p>Dubenich sat up even straighter in his chair, brows drawn tight together in affronted concern. “Sir. If I <em>may</em>. I’d like to remind you that I am the only Auror who’s <em>officially</em> been to visit Draco Malfoy in his current location. Given that, and my eight months’ work that led to us even having the <em>ability</em> to locate Malfoy and the other Death Eaters, I should really be considered the right person for this assignment.”</p>
<p>“The right person for this assignment is not the person who reads this screed and says that it isn’t ‘entirely unreasonable,’” Abernathy informed him sternly. “The right person for this assignment is the Auror I can trust to fully understand that <em>the priority here</em> is to take this entire debacle back under the Department’s control and prove our authority unequivocally. You are, as always, thanked for your work on Project Lodestone, and the undeniable assistance it provided the entire Department of Magical Law Enforcement. But that assignment is over and you can’t expect to have purview over every case that uses its results.”</p>
<p>“Thank you. Of course, it wasn’t only <em>my</em> work,” Dubenich said, having the sudden compulsion to share the credit where due. Of course, that only reminded him of the main person to whom that shared credit was owed, turning his serious face even more somber. “Sir, that reminds me. I should make you aware that Terry Boot made reference to Project Lodestone when I spoke to them Monday to verify that they have no knowledge whatsoever of Auror Potter’s actions.”</p>
<p>Abernathy gave him a sharp look. “He was able to outright mention that aloud?” he demanded.</p>
<p>“Well. No, sir. But they did allude to the fact that we had worked together in front of Auror Hammond,” Dubenich said. “I wanted to bring it to your attention, in case that should be of any concern.”</p>
<p>“He’s getting complacent. Someone should put him back in his place, Head Auror.” McLaggen offered this with the barely subsumed eagerness of someone who might as well be raising his hand for the job.</p>
<p>Abernathy raised his eyebrows. “A bit below your paygrade, isn’t it, Auror McLaggen? Focus on your job taking care of a rogue Death Eater, and leave the impudent secretary for someone else to deal with.” He thought for a moment, then said to Dubenich, “I may have Auror Hammond check in on him, though. Thank you for telling me.”</p>
<p>“No,” Dubenich said firmly, before he could stop himself. “Not Hammond. I’ll talk to Boot, sir. I’m—I’m familiar with the project and the nature of Boot’s involvement; Hammond isn’t. I’ll take care of it.”</p>
<p>“Fine,” Abernathy said. “Take care of it. Although the only person he may be able to hurt by managing to bring this to light is himself.”</p>
<p>Abernathy looked from Dubenich to McLaggen.</p>
<p>“All right, you’re both dismissed. You know what you need to do. Have fun, gentlemen.”</p>
<p>McLaggen grinned. “I will, sir.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning from "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez.</p>
<p>I gotta admit, one of the fun things about writing something set in January 2008 is knowing that "AIM screenname using a Franz Ferdinand lyric" counts as a period-accurate detail :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Fourteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact</em><br/>
<em>But maybe everything that dies someday comes back</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco first felt it late Thursday night—or, rather, early Friday morning at around three o’clock, when a harsh familiar pain jolted him awake.</p>
<p>He thought at first it was a half-dreamt nightmare flashback seeping into the comforting warm darkness of slumber, then realized, no, this was real, he was awake, <em>this wasn’t a dream</em>. He lay very still for a several long minutes, feeling the throb and pang in his left forearm and listening hard for any sign there might be someone <em>here</em>.</p>
<p>But all he heard was the usual silence: the creak of beams under the pressure of the winter wind whistling low against the house, the scrape of branches against the front shutters, the intermittent soft clank of the old radiators.</p>
<p>He got up and checked the front door, which was still locked. He pushed aside the curtain over the little window on the door and saw nothing outside but the new fresh snowfall that had already erased his own footprints on the walk.</p>
<p>He then went to the rarely used back door wedged in the far corner of the kitchen. It was still locked as well. The window over the sink revealed nothing but a backyard buried under a snowdrift, and the top half of the pointed slats of the picket fence at the back edge of the property.</p>
<p>He made himself a mug of warm milk with vanilla and tried to decide if there was a best course of action.</p>
<p>The low tingling ache in his arm was already fading away, but now that he was awake and thinking clearly, he could tell the magic reaching out to the Mark was coming from far away. Just as it had the last time, less than two days before Dubenich had shown up just to prove that he could.</p>
<p>So they were likely still in England.</p>
<p>
  <em>Probably just making sure I didn’t turn chicken and skip town the second Potter left for home. No, assholes, still here, still doing nothing worth your time.</em>
</p>
<p>He finished his milk and set the mug in the sink with the dishes he assumed he’d get around to, and went back to bed.</p>
<p>When he woke up a short few hours later, his arm seemed fine, as if he had only imagined three o’clock in the morning.</p>
<p>There was another twinge not long after he left for the Breakfast, but it was so brief he was able to convince himself it might be his mind playing tricks on him, or maybe residual sensation in his nerves and muscles from last night, a mixture of pessimism and paranoia and oversensitivity.</p>
<p>He reassured himself there was nowhere safer for him than the diner. No Auror would storm into a little Muggle business—especially one with so much open window—not when there was no actual danger to the people inside.</p>
<p>Draco shoved his hands deeper in his coat pockets, hunched his shoulders, and walked faster.</p>
<p>With every step, the crunch of his boots in last night’s fresh snow echoed a confirmation in the empty still-dark morning streets that he was alone, alone, alone.</p>
<p>It was an unexceptional winter Friday at the Breakfast. It could so easily have slipped, silent and invisible, into the deep wide well of cold weekdays Draco had spent at work, all of them comforting in their interchangeability.</p>
<p>But when he looked back on <em>this</em> Friday, it crystallized into something so sharp and painfully vivid, a long Technicolor reel played in crisp focus:</p>
<p>Merv and the prep cook getting into a debate over whether the worst Springsteen song was still better than the worst Beatles song.</p>
<p>“That’s blasphemy,” argued the prep cook.</p>
<p>“‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da,’” Merv counterargued.</p>
<p>Tony making a lemon meringue pie and a sweet potato pie, before trying out a chocolate cherry pie recipe he’d come up with, taking a spoonful of the filling and saying, “Come over here and taste this, Alfie.”</p>
<p>A hint of Dutch cocoa and brandy cut through the sweetness of the syrup, and the cherries were dark and tart.</p>
<p>“Imagine a slice of this, warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a cup of hot coffee,” Tony told him.</p>
<p>“I may imagine that every day for the rest of my life,” Draco replied.</p>
<p>That afternoon, Bud and Gene came in from a late lunch after running errands.</p>
<p>“Finally decided to say goodbye to my lost youth once and for all,” Bud announced, “and pay the neighbor kid to shovel the driveway and front walk.”</p>
<p>“Your youth’s been <em>long</em> gone for years now,” Gene told him. “You’re just finally admittin’ to yourself that your back’s going out with it.”</p>
<p>Bud pointed an emphatic finger at Draco like he was about to impart a piece of rare wisdom. “Son, you listen here and remember: Gettin’ old’s a bitch, so don’t do it.”</p>
<p>Draco laughed and pushed a latte across the counter to him. The foam was poured in a shape like a flower. “I don’t know if I like the alternative,” he said.</p>
<p>Bud shook his head and waved a hand. “Nonsense. Just stay young and live forever. You’re a smart cookie, you’ll crack the secret on that one.”</p>
<p>“Well, when you do,” Gene said, “you give me a call and let me in on it, before I get too much older myself, all right?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s something I can brew you up a cup of, I’m afraid,” Draco said. “But how about I start a cappuccino instead?”</p>
<p>As he did that, Gene leaned his elbows on the counter and looked at him. “Hey, Alf,” he said. “Runnin’ a phone bank for Senator Obama on Tuesday. You want in? Caucus is only three weeks off, so it’s all hands on deck if we can get ‘em.”</p>
<p>Tony raised his eyebrows from where he was down by the register. “Phone banking?” he repeated. “Pretty establishment for you, isn’t it? What, no government buildings for you to occupy this time of year?”</p>
<p>“Listen,” Gene replied. “You work with the system when you can, and when you can’t…” He shrugged with a meaningful look at both Tony and Draco in turn. “When you <em>can’t</em>, I’m all for a little civil disobedience.”</p>
<p>Draco knew that wasn’t just talk with Gene. He’d heard by now all the stories, mostly from Bud, who complained with glowing pride about every time he’d posted bail for Gene from Vietnam through AIDS.</p>
<p>“I’m not eligible to vote here,” Draco pointed out.</p>
<p>“Who cares,” Gene said. “With <em>that</em> accent, strangers on the phone’ll think you sound like you know what you’re talkin’ about.”</p>
<p>The two of them lingered for a while, chatting with the rest of the diner staff and bickering good-naturedly with each other until Gene looked out the big bank of windows and said, “Uh-oh. Lookit there, that’s a snow sky if I ever saw one. C’mon, old man, let’s get you home.”</p>
<p>As Gene helped Bud shrug on his winter parka, Bud said, “You’re sayin’ I have to pay the neighbor kid to do the same thing again <em>tomorrow</em>?” He grinned over at Draco. “Hey, Alfie, you wanna make a few bucks with a snow shovel?”</p>
<p>“He would <em>not</em>. He’s a grown man with a real job,” Gene chided, “not some kid with a paper route who’s still impressed that you can pull a quarter out of his ear.”</p>
<p>Not long after they had gone, Merv decided to send the rest of the staff home.</p>
<p>“First flakes are already starting,” he said. “They’re calling for another foot by midnight, maybe more. Better that you all get home safe than hang around with nothing to do.”</p>
<p>When Draco didn’t join the others in putting on his coat, Merv cocked his head at him. “You really want to stick around? You know you’re all paid either way. Won’t hurt my feelings if you’d rather be home, warm and dry.”</p>
<p>Draco ran a distracted hand over the inside of his forearm; the sharp close twinge that had shot through only about twenty minutes prior was still waning to a low pulsing ache.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he said. “I’d rather hang around here than home.” He smirked. “Besides, there’s still half that cherry pie left and if business is as slow as you expect, you may need someone to solve that problem for you.”</p>
<p>Merv grinned and went over to cut a slice. “I’m willing to take the chance of there being a sudden inexplicable rush on pie,” he said, sliding the plate and a fork down the counter to Draco.</p>
<p>Merv crossed from behind the counter to the customer side, where it was easier to hop up and sit on the counter next to Draco and his espresso machine.</p>
<p>Tony came back out from the kitchen and looked at Merv. “What is it with you people and sitting on the counters? We have <em>seats</em>, we’re a <em>diner</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv rolled his eyes. “So don’t seat anyone at the counter. Tell ‘em it’s quarantined because the chef <em>dared</em> to sit on it.” He reached over and plucked the fork from Draco’s fingers to take a bite of pie for himself. “In other news, this fucking <em>pie</em>. Seriously, Tony. It’s probably better than sex.”</p>
<p>Tony settled onto the diner stool beside his partner with a bemused shake of his head. “I feel both complimented <em>and</em> insulted by that, you know.”</p>
<p>“Fine. I take it back. You’re multi-talented and I’m doubly blessed to have you in my life,” Merv said.</p>
<p>“Is this where I should suggest that makes me triple-blessed?” Draco asked Merv. “Or are you not making any bold claims about <em>your</em> talents outside the kitchen? Also, can I have my fork back?”</p>
<p>“Not after a comment like <em>that</em>, you’re not,” Merv told him. “<em>Bold claims</em>. The <em>nerve</em>. You wanna see <em>talent</em>, I can give you <em>plenty</em> of talent, believe you me—” He gestured at Draco with the fork, which Draco plucked from his fingers.</p>
<p>“I’ll be holding you to that promise, you know,” Draco assured him, taking another bite of pie. “You owe me <em>talent</em> now.”</p>
<p>Tony glanced at Draco’s plate. “What did I tell you? Warm. Ice cream. Cup of coffee. Learn to follow directions, Alfie.”</p>
<p>“He’ll do that on the next slice,” Merv promised Tony.</p>
<p>“I was not serious about eating half a pie,” Draco said.</p>
<p>“But the night is young and full of possibility,” Merv told him cheerfully.</p>
<p>Merv was right about the promise of another snowstorm killing their dinner business. A couple of the lunch shift servers from The Front Porch stopped in to share a plate of onion rings with their usual coffee orders from Draco, and one of the Main Street shop owners came by after she closed up early to get a lobster roll and cup of matzo ball soup to take home.</p>
<p>And then it was quiet.</p>
<p>The dishes were washed, the tables were wiped down, the floor was swept, and there wasn’t much left to do until they decided to call it and declare that it was highly unlikely they’d get enough customers—if any at all—to make it worth keeping the lights on.</p>
<p>But it was warm and dry inside the diner, while the world outside was cold and wet and dark, with fat flakes floating down heavy.</p>
<p>Draco balanced the books in the back office, while Merv—feeling inspired and full of goodwill—decided to use the leftover mashed potatoes and sauerkraut to make pierogi.</p>
<p>While Tony and Draco were sharing a slice of leftover lemon meringue, Merv emerged triumphant from the kitchen bearing a casserole dish of pierogi baked in layers of fresh mozzarella, topped with dollops of sour cream and bacon.</p>
<p>Merv and Draco both sat on the counter on either side of Tony, who had mostly given up on customers and put a Post-It note in the window of the door that read: <em>SORT OF CLOSED DUE TO WEATHER. KNOCK &amp; WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT.</em></p>
<p>“I hate to ask and seem nosy,” Merv began.</p>
<p>“Well, <em>that’s</em> a lie,” Tony murmured. “You love to be nosy.”</p>
<p>“Okay, fair.” Merv started over: “I <em>love</em> to ask and seem nosy, so, I gotta know: What’s the follow-up on the Harry situation?”</p>
<p>“What follow-up?” Draco asked. “He went back to London on Sunday.”</p>
<p>“And that’s the last thing we heard from you on the matter,” Merv said, “when you came to work Sunday morning. Uncharacteristically running late. Having been walked here by a <em>certain</em> old school friend, but not bringing him inside because you ‘didn’t want to make it a thing.’ Which really just sounds like maybe there’s a thing to be made.” He cut a pierogi in half with the side of his fork. “Sidenote: I am a <em>fucking amazing</em> cook. Let it be known. Although I’m pretty sure I have all four of my grandparents rolling over in their graves for how kosher this isn’t.”</p>
<p>Draco studied Merv shrewdly. “Are you by chance high?”</p>
<p>Merv rolled his eyes and sighed. “Alfie. I am thirty-six years old, I am a classically trained culinary professional and a respected small business owner, I would <em>never</em> smoke half a joint at the back door while my pierogi were baking and everyone else was pregaming with pie.”</p>
<p>“You were <em>outside</em>?” Draco asked. “In the <em>snow</em>?”</p>
<p>At the same time, Tony said, “<em>Half</em> a joint?”</p>
<p>“Yes on both counts,” Merv told them. “I’m saving the other half for later. Because, as I said, I’m a responsible adult. The kind of person who plans ahead and pays his taxes on time. And I <em>like</em> the snow. It’s romantic.” He smiled at Tony, that warm flirty smile that could win almost anyone over instantly. “Second most romantic thing I moved out here for.”</p>
<p>Draco pretended to gag at that. “<em>Sap</em>.”</p>
<p>“You betcha,” Merv said. “Which is why I still wanna know more about what went down with Harry. Don’t think you’ve changed the subject on me.”</p>
<p>Draco ate another pierogi while trying to decide how to answer that. “I suppose,” he said, all performatively casual and no-big-deal, “I <em>did</em> stop him from kissing me.”</p>
<p>Tony and Merv stared.</p>
<p>“I upset him. It was in reaction to that. It had nothing to do with <em>me</em> at all.”</p>
<p>Merv and Tony exchanged glances.</p>
<p>“Call me crazy,” Tony said, “but I don’t usually try to <em>kiss</em> people who piss me off.”</p>
<p>“I have <em>so many</em> questions,” Merv added, nodding in agreement with Tony.</p>
<p>“He’s <em>lonely</em>, and only five months divorced,” Draco said. “And I had just accidentally taken him on a journey of harsh truths about his marriage, followed by a journey of harsh truths about—about my thoughts on our headmaster, and how I thought Harry was misguided in his memory of the man.”</p>
<p>“Your headmaster,” Merv repeated.</p>
<p>“At boarding school,” Draco elaborated.</p>
<p>“<em>Ri-i-ight</em>,” Merv said. “I think I kind of forgot <em>that</em> part for second, ‘cause Harry didn’t strike me as the posh boarding school asshole type. No offense, kiddo.”</p>
<p>“I’m well aware I could be the poster child for posh boarding school assholes, don’t worry,” Draco assured him. “And I was far from the only one of <em>those</em> in that school, I’ll have you know. There were a lot of… legacy students from rich old money families. But plenty of the others were there for their abilities. Academically.” He focused on smearing a layer of sour cream over one of the last two pierogi on his plate, a faint nostalgic smile at the corner of his mouth. “I remember him showing up to school on our first day. This tiny scrawny boy on the train platform with ragged trainers and tragically uncool taped-together NHS glasses and a terrible haircut given to him by someone who’d <em>clearly</em> never bothered to learn how his hair works. And he was out of my league even then.”</p>
<p>Tony regarded Draco frankly. “And you had a thing for him even then.”</p>
<p>“No! I mean. It’s complicated. But no. Not exactly. I don’t know.” Draco made a face. “Can we just circle back to the fact neither of you seem shocked that Harry Potter wanted to kiss me? As brief and misguided as that moment was.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I didn’t realize we were supposed to pretend that was <em>shocking</em>,” Merv said.</p>
<p>“<em>Isn’t</em> it?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>“<em>I</em> want to kiss you,” Tony pointed out. “<em>Merv</em> wants to kiss you. On the regular. I can’t really say my mind’s blown by the idea that we’re not the only two people out there who’re interested.”</p>
<p>“It’s not that,” Draco said. “It’s that it’s Harry <em>specifically</em>.”</p>
<p>Merv shrugged. “I’m mostly trying to wrap my head around the fact you stopped him. If <em>I</em> were you, and <em>my</em> high school crush came waltzing into town looking magazine-gorgeous—”</p>
<p>“Because he didn’t want to kiss <em>me</em>,” Draco shot back. He frowned down at his plate, willing the waver in his voice to steady. “I used to be in love with him,” he said evenly. “Painfully so.”</p>
<p>Tony nodded. “Yeah, we’re more than well aware of <em>that</em>, don’t worry.”</p>
<p>“And then I <em>don’t</em> let him kiss me, because I don’t want him to do something he’ll regret. Because he’s still <em>really good</em> at acting without thinking, so if <em>he’s</em> not going to think, someone else ought to do it for him, oughtn’t they? So if he tries to do something he doesn’t want to, I should stop him. To protect him.”</p>
<p>“Mm-hmm,” Merv said thoughtfully. “I think this is what they call personal growth.”</p>
<p>“In that case, personal growth sucks and I’m going to stop doing it,” Draco grumbled. He thought of his last phone call with Harry and the things <em>almost</em> said aloud there, but that was still too much, too private, too fragile and terrifying and precious. So he set that aside, asking, “And what’s this about him looking magazine-gorgeous? Last I heard, you were all, ‘Meh, I <em>guess</em> he’s cute, but not my thing.’”</p>
<p>“He’s <em>not</em> my thing,” Merv said. “I’m rarely into a man smaller than me—”</p>
<p>“Smaller than two of you,” Tony suggested.</p>
<p>“—but I’ve got <em>eyes</em>, kiddo. I know gorgeous when I see it, even if it’s not <em>my</em> stiff cup of morning coffee.” Merv sighed. “I just knew if I told you I agreed the boy was a looker, you’d use that as just another reason to convince yourself he’s too good for you.”</p>
<p>“Please don’t argue Merv on this,” Tony said. “I know you’re gonna. You’ve got your argument face on.”</p>
<p>Draco set his plate aside with a frustrated sigh and drew his feet up to cross them on the counter. He fussed with the rows of mugs beside him, turning them so their handles were all perfectly parallel to each other.</p>
<p>“He <em>is</em> too good for me, though,” he protested. He saw Tony’s expression, so he clarified, “No, not in <em>that</em> way, not has-a-real-<em>career</em>-and-actual-visible-<em>abs</em> ‘too good for me.’ Harry’s too capital-G <em>good</em>. The type of person everyone trusts and admires. The type of person everyone wanted to befriend, while I was…” Draco made a face and shrugged that off. “I was the opposite. Still am, mostly.” He sighed and nudged the rows of coffee mugs into even more precise rows to avoid looking them in the eye, as he added as flippantly as he could, “Of course, he’s also too good for me in the first way too.”</p>
<p>Merv and Tony exchanged glances.</p>
<p>“Is being a cop really better than working at a diner?” Tony asked.</p>
<p>“Who decided abs were so important?” Merv added.</p>
<p>“The rest of the world,” Tony and Draco replied in near unison.</p>
<p>Merv winced apologetically. “Right. Sorry.” He cocked his head to one side, giving Draco an examining look that was far too shrewd and knowing. “Okay. But here’s the sticking point, kiddo. Let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that Harry is too good for you. Then are you not good enough for me and Tony either, or is Harry truly <em>that</em> perfect?”</p>
<p>“He’s <em>definitely</em> not perfect,” Draco retorted, a little too quickly. “It’s simply the fact that in order to make up for who I once was, I have to be—good enough to deserve that redemption. Maybe <em>I</em> have to be perfect to deserve him, to make up for…”</p>
<p><em>For the fact that it’s </em>me.</p>
<p>Draco had been studying his own hands folded in his lap as he said that, but looked up then to see Merv’s face.</p>
<p>Merv slid gracefully off the edge of the counter to come stand in front of Draco. “<em>Alfie</em>.” His eyes were sad and a little wounded. “I know… I know <em>enough</em> about who you once were. Let’s just leave it there. But <em>I</em> decided you'd earned enough redemption for <em>me</em> to want you. That <em>has</em> to be enough. For my sake.” He took both Draco’s hands in his, squeezing them hard. “Please try to don’t convince me you don’t deserve forgiveness yet. Because if you’re not good enough yet for Harry, you’re not… <em>Fuck</em>. Alfie. Don’t you <em>dare</em> suggest to me that I’m sleeping with someone who’s still carrying that much of who you once were.”</p>
<p>Draco blinked. “I… <em>Oh</em>. I hadn’t thought of that.”</p>
<p>Merv smiled slightly at him, sad and pitying. “I can tell.” He glanced at Tony, then back to Draco. “Okay, then think for a second and answer me <em>this</em>: Are you good enough for me to love you? Are you worth Tony loving you? Be honest.”</p>
<p>Draco was quiet for a long moment, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he decided finally. “I think I am.”</p>
<p>“Then it’s not about you not deserving redemption,” Tony said, moving close to tuck a lock of hair behind Draco’s ear. “That’s just the excuse you’ve been using since you were fifteen. It was true back then, when you were doing what your parents wanted and parroting the bigotry they taught you. But it’s bullshit <em>now</em>. <em>You</em> did that. <em>You</em> did your penance and grew. <em>You, Alfie</em>.”</p>
<p><em>Alfie might have put in the work</em>, Draco wanted to say, <em>but I don’t know if Draco Malfoy gets to benefit from that yet</em>.</p>
<p>“Fine,” Draco said. “You’re right. Maybe that’s just an easy out to take. Maybe it makes me feel noble or something, I don’t know.” He forced a little bit of a laugh, squeezing Merv’s hands in apology. “Instead of me admitting there’s nothing noble wanting someone like <em>that</em>. Someone with a perfect jawline and those <em>eyes</em>, with a beautiful mouth, someone with the kind of body that could be used to model underwear on billboards. You can <em>tell</em>.” He let go of Merv’s hands to nudge one of the mugs a fraction of an inch back. “I know I’m shallow for wanting that. Better to just convince myself I’m somehow being altruistic about the whole thing.”</p>
<p>Tony took a deep breath and let it out, eyebrows raised. “Wow. I’m not even gonna touch this one, other than to say that’s about one of the dumbest notions I’ve heard from you in a <em>long</em> time, Alfie.”</p>
<p>Draco shook his head. “It’s not <em>just</em> Harry,” he argued. “Everyone I’ve ever fallen for has been so damned handsome. You <em>know</em> it’s true. I only ever seem to want unforgivably attractive men. Harry. Dale. You. Merv. Et cetera.”</p>
<p>Merv sighed. He put his hands on Draco’s shoulders. Draco rearranged his long legs to place one on either side of Merv. Resting his forehead against Draco’s, Merv met his eyes. “Alfie, kiddo. Listen to me: You and I, we’re both of us vain and shallow beings. That doesn’t make us undeserving of love.” Merv wrapped Draco in a hug with a kiss. “That, and you’ve got plenty yourself for someone to get all vain and shallow over.”</p>
<p>Draco opened his mouth, but found he didn’t know how to respond. There was nothing he could say they could possibly understand.</p>
<p>
  <em>You don’t understand. He’s Harry Potter and I’m Draco Malfoy, and there’s not a place in the whole world where Draco Malfoy deserves to want Harry Potter with any hope of getting what he wants.</em>
</p>
<p>“What do I have,” Draco said quietly.</p>
<p>“Wow, you actually <em>need</em> an answer to this,” Merv said. He gave Draco an affectionate kiss, then leaned back and tilted his head to one side, squinting at Draco like a painter assessing his subject, his hands still on Draco’s shoulders. “Well, you’ve got that gorgeous hair in a shade of platinum other people pay a <em>lot</em> for in salons. You’ve got pretty eyes and prettier hands, and a mouth out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. You’ve got legs for days, you’ve got an ass to die for, and you’ve got a <em>real</em> cute belly.” He ran one hand down to rest on it, with a teasing wolfish grin.</p>
<p>Draco shot Merv a knowing look on that last point.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t give me that,” Merv said. “We both know how right I am. Don’t pretend you didn’t wear that sweater Sunday morning <em>on purpose</em> for the benefit of a certain old classmate.”</p>
<p>“Which sweater?” Draco asked, his slight smirk ruining his attempt at feigned ignorance.</p>
<p>“The tight blue V-neck one you’re <em>well aware</em> that you were wearing, you ass,” Merv said. “Let me see, what else? Where was I? Ah. Yes. How about the fact you talk with your wrists and walk with your hips, and both those things are so damned <em>pretty</em> to watch?”</p>
<p>Draco smiled a little at that, but then furrowed his brow, falling silent for a few seconds. “But I used to be—” He moved a couple mugs a half-inch to the left. “I mean, maybe I ought to actually try losing some…” He didn’t want to finish that sentence, feeling miserable at the idea it was something he was <em>supposed</em> to suggest. He was <em>supposed</em> to want to be reed-thin again; that was <em>supposed</em> to be the aspiration; he wasn’t <em>supposed</em> to be <em>happier</em> in his own skin now, like this.</p>
<p>“Uh-huh,” Merv said tiredly. “Sure. Let’s just let you go back to the <em>you</em> I met four years ago, not even bothering to move food around on your plate, because you had it ingrained in you far too young that you should be <em>proud</em> of the fact you’re some superior being who doesn’t care about food.” Merv looked at Draco with a level gaze. “I very nearly didn’t hire you, you know.”</p>
<p>Draco blinked. “What? You never told me that. I thought it was <em>Tony</em> who must have been the hard sell.”</p>
<p>“Not me, princess,” Tony said. “I’m the one who wanted to give you a shot, though I worried Merv was right.”</p>
<p>Draco gave Tony a small grateful smile. “Right about what?” he asked Merv.</p>
<p>Merv caught Draco’s fingertips in his own, lacing them together. “Oh, kiddo, I had you pegged for one of those pretty boys with designer clothes and a trust fund pallor, one of those Upper East Side queens living off coke and vodka.”</p>
<p>“I was trying to be.”</p>
<p>“I know. And I’ve seen enough of <em>those</em> to last a lifetime now; I spent enough years having enough of them assume <em>I</em> was one; I’ve…” Merv sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. I just—I don’t think I could deal with that from you again. I’m too damn tired of selling food to boys who don’t eat. I can’t have one working here all day. And I sure as hell don’t think I could share my bed with one again. I left <em>that</em> game behind when I left New York.”</p>
<p>Draco looked at Tony as if to ask how he was supposed to respond.</p>
<p>Tony just put a hand on Merv’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Draco said. “It seems like the line I ought to give, that I should want to lose all this weight I’ve put on since moving up here.”</p>
<p>“That’s the line <em>Dale</em> expected you to give,” Tony said.</p>
<p>“Yes, and I couldn’t follow through on it even <em>then</em>,” Draco pointed out. A bitterness bit into his voice, but he couldn’t tell whether it was directed at his ex-boyfriend or himself. “And that was, what, twenty pounds ago? At <em>least</em>.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Merv cut in, exasperated. “No. We are not doing this.” He took a step away from Tony to glare at him. “Why the fuck did you bring <em>Dale</em> into this?”</p>
<p>“Because this is the same shit we got to hear when he dumped Alfie,” Tony said. “Because that sonofabitch spent so much time reteaching him everything he’d fought so hard to unlearn.” He turned to Draco and swept the loose waves of hair back from his face. “He tried to sell you the idea that the only way you’d keep <em>any</em> boyfriend is to measure up to what <em>he specifically</em> wanted, which was someone else entirely, someone exactly like <em>him</em>. Have you ever for a moment doubted you were enough for <em>me</em>—or Merv—based on what some insufferable Ivy League prick thought you should be?”</p>
<p>Draco’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Tell me how you <em>really</em> feel, why don’t you.”</p>
<p>“There <em>are</em>, for instance, plenty of non-Dale men who would love a boyfriend who buys used paperback novels and thrift store dishes,” Merv said.</p>
<p>“And who don’t get judgy about a boyfriend whose favorite food is pancakes,” Tony added. “Or about the fact you eat apple pie with a big chunk of cheddar cheese like a grandma.”</p>
<p>“<em>Excuse</em> me,” Draco said, “I got that from <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>“So then I’m a grandma too,” Tony said, unbothered.</p>
<p>“Or how about the many men who have <em>absolutely no problem</em> with piercings,” Merv cut in, reaching over to cup a hand over one side of Draco’s chest, sweeping his thumb lightly over his nipple.</p>
<p>Draco let out a little involuntary gasp, arching into the touch.</p>
<p>Merv drew back, beaming wickedly at him.</p>
<p>“Christ, we had an awful row when I told him I wanted to have them done,” Draco remembered. “He thought just the eyebrow was going <em>more</em> than far enough.”</p>
<p>He hadn’t had it in him to explain to Dale how he wanted to reclaim the parts of himself he was learning to like again.</p>
<p>Like his chest, striped with half a dozen old scars running diagonally from ribcage to collarbone.</p>
<p>“Who doesn’t mind that you’ve seen <em>Candyman</em> about a dozen times,” Tony said, to bring Draco back from thinking about old fights with Dale. “Who understands it’s partly because you have a crush on Candyman. Even though he kills a <em>lot</em> of people.”</p>
<p>“He’s tragic and romantic,” Draco countered, thankful for the distraction. “You <em>know</em> what he went through.”</p>
<p>“He’s full of <em>bees</em>, Alfie.”</p>
<p>Merv blinked. “He’s <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>“Bees.” Tony waved that away. “Never mind. Not the point.”</p>
<p>“There are also plenty of men who don’t feel emasculated by the fact that you prefer to be the big spoon,” Merv said.</p>
<p>Tony rolled his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ.”</p>
<p>“Men who won’t keep finding ways to hint that I might be <em>too</em> gay,” Draco said. He looked at Merv. “<em>You</em> know.”</p>
<p>“<em>Oy</em>. Boy, <em>do</em> I,” Merv concurred with a long sigh.</p>
<p>“What the <em>fuck</em>,” Tony said.</p>
<p>“It’s a thing,” Draco told him.</p>
<p>“It’s <em>very much</em> a thing,” Merv added.</p>
<p>“I <em>know</em>, I just…” Tony shook his head, a flash of anger in his eyes. “I just keep forgetting how fucking <em>much</em> I hated Dale.”</p>
<p>Merv squeezed Draco’s hand. “On the flip side,” he said, “there are men out there <em>plenty</em> into someone who talks with their wrists and walks with their hips.” He stretched out one leg to bump it against Tony’s hip. “Our man here for one. Harry for another.”</p>
<p>“<em>Harry</em>?” Draco echoed.</p>
<p>“Definitely Harry,” Tony said. “Repeatedly.”</p>
<p>“<em>Absolutely</em> Harry,” Merv said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the look in his eyes when he was watching you talk and wal—” He stopped and grinned, winking at Draco. “No, you <em>couldn’t</em> have seen the look in his eyes <em>then</em>, could you? Not from <em>behind</em> you.”</p>
<p>“Can’t blame the guy,” Tony added. “Not for noticing something <em>I </em>notice about you on the daily.”</p>
<p>“Harry’s straight,” Draco said. As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew how untrue they felt, how at odds they were with the unspoken-but-all-too-clear thing Harry tried to tell him over the phone.</p>
<p>Since before that.</p>
<p>Since before the kitchen.</p>
<p>Since his fumbling questions sitting on the living room rug: <em>Can someone really </em>tell<em> if a person’s not—y’know. If they’re not straight? </em>How<em>?</em></p>
<p>Even before then.</p>
<p>“<em>Right</em>,” Merv said. “You believe <em>that</em> and I’ve got some magic beans to sell you.” He turned to Tony with a wry look. “You <em>listening</em> to this, hon? <em>Harry</em>. Is <em>straight</em>.”</p>
<p>Laughing, Tony pulled Merv by his wrist out from the frame of Draco’s legs and against his own large body.</p>
<p>With Merv resting his head on Tony’s chest, Tony met Draco’s eyes and said, “He <em>was</em> checking you out, you know. A <em>lot</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Draco replied, vanity winning out against caution.</p>
<p>He remembered the way he had purposefully brought Harry’s attention to him—<em>chubby effete barista, the things I’ve learned to like about myself</em>—and had leaned back on his couch under that gaze, frank and unashamed and leisurely inviting observation.</p>
<p>Asking Harry to <em>look</em> at him.</p>
<p>And Harry had done it, openly and guilelessly, impulsively raking his eyes over Draco’s body.</p>
<p>It made him want to shiver at the memory, as though he could feel Harry’s gaze like a touch on his skin, brushing over his face, down his throat, his chest, his stomach, his arms and thighs.</p>
<p>“So what now?” Merv asked, turning to lean his back against Tony and look at Draco, wrapping Tony’s arms around his waist. “Call me a hopeless romantic, but I wanna imagine that I’ll get to watch the two of you get together. Not literally, of course.” Merv paused. “No, scratch that. I’d be down for <em>literally</em>, too. Either way, trust me on this one: this is <em>not</em> the last you’ll hear of each other. Even if he’s <em>there</em> and you’re <em>here</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m here,” Draco repeated, a distant look coming into his gray eyes like clouds rolling in. He ran his thumbnail along his lower lip, putting together the puzzle pieces of the past few days that he had been trying to keep separated, for fear that he could already guess the picture it would show him.</p>
<p>“You okay there, kiddo?”</p>
<p>Draco shook his head. “I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“You’re not,” Tony said. “And here I thought we’d just made headway on the whole Harry thing.”</p>
<p>“This one’s not about Harry,” Draco said. “I wish it were.”</p>
<p>Neither Merv nor Tony said anything in response, having learned long ago that it was on Draco to elaborate on his cryptically dramatic statements if he really wanted them to know.</p>
<p>“Harry is—Oh, he’s just an old crush, who had the impudence and gall to go off and <em>improve</em> with time and distance, thus reopening all that foolishness I was sure I’d buried deep enough. I’ll get better. I can probably blame you two for how he found the path right to the middle of me, where things can hurt. <em>You</em> taught me to leave myself open for that sort of thing.” Draco smiled faintly. It wasn’t a kind smile; it seemed to be saying something mocking to himself. “If you asked me a week ago if I’d rather go back to the person I once was, walls built so high and strong I couldn’t even reach my <em>own</em> heart sometimes, I would have found the notion unimaginable. But for what’s going to happen now, I almost wish I could go back there. I’m going to hurt—I’m going to hurt people.” <em>Both of you</em>. “And I don’t think I’ll find it bearable.”</p>
<p>Merv and Tony could both see the helplessness barely hidden under Draco’s carefully composed expression of calm resignation.</p>
<p>Tony moved Merv aside to approach Draco. He held out one hand to help him off the counter, like a footman helping a duchess from her carriage.</p>
<p>He didn’t let go when Draco was standing in front of him. “Who are you going to hurt? Harry?”</p>
<p>Draco shook his head. “This isn’t about him. It’s what he brought <em>with</em> him.”</p>
<p>Tony put one hand under Draco’s chin, turning his face up to look him in the eyes. “What did he bring with him, princess?” he pressed, with the quiet gentleness of someone trying not to spook a nervous animal.</p>
<p>Draco shook his head slightly.</p>
<p>Tony could see the doors inside Draco sliding closed and locking tight.</p>
<p>“I can’t tell you that,” Draco said. “It’s not <em>his</em> fault. He was here on business, about my father’s property.” That much seemed safe enough. “It didn’t need to be <em>Harry</em> who came,” he added. “He wasn’t supposed to be involved, but he stepped in because… Because it was me.”</p>
<p>Draco let himself nestle himself into Tony, let Tony put his arms around him. There was something to be said, Draco thought, for the security of being held by someone bigger and softer. He wondered if he had been that person for Harry in the kitchen on Saturday night, when Draco had pulled him close and tight.</p>
<p>“It’s not about Harry,” Draco said again, from the safety of Tony’s plaid flannel chest. “It’s not about my father’s property, either.”</p>
<p>Merv put a hand on Draco’s back. “What <em>is</em> it about?” he asked. He gave a short soft chuckle, and added to soften the question, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”</p>
<p>In his first week at the diner, Merv had asked that, making reference to “your song,” and Draco hadn’t understood.</p>
<p><em>Seriously, Alfred? It’s by Cher and it’s from a Michael Caine movie. What kind of gay Englishman </em>are<em> you?</em></p>
<p>Draco took a step back to look at them.</p>
<p>He felt guilty, in a sudden wave, for how deep and vast the well of things he kept from them was.</p>
<p>The things he would continue keeping from them.</p>
<p>Tony and Merv thought they’d chipped away at his armor to let him be soft and breakable, but there were still so many secret brittle layers left hidden.</p>
<p>Sometimes, he was pleased by how he kept his private walls up and his miles of horrible secrets hidden under the floorboards. He hated that, the nasty superior Slytherin impulse to comfort himself with that, reassuring himself he was better than them because he was worse.</p>
<p>Because—as his song suggested—<em>if only fools are kind, Alfie, then I guess it is wise to be cruel</em>.</p>
<p>He supposed he didn’t have the bravery to be someone like them—like Harry—who walked through life with their hearts held out to the world in open hands.</p>
<p>Draco shook his head. “I can’t tell you,” he said firmly. “I need you to understand that. Don’t ask me for more than that, because I can’t give it.”</p>
<p>“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Merv asked.</p>
<p>“No,” Draco lied, with such confidence that he almost believed it himself.</p>
<p>“Then I’m… I’m not sure what’s going on, kiddo.”</p>
<p>Draco shook his head again and said nothing.</p>
<p>Tony and Merv recognized the way Draco shut down when he came against a wall of his past he couldn’t force himself to breach. Pressing him harder never helped; take it a step too far and he’d get angry and lash out that he didn’t want to <em>talk</em> about it, it can’t <em>matter</em>, he left all that back in England and they’ve no <em>right</em> to make him drag it out into the light <em>here</em>.</p>
<p>Merv stepped away to the register drawer and pulled out a quarter, holding it out like an offering in his outstretched palm.</p>
<p>He didn’t need to explain. Draco understood.</p>
<p>Merv had done this before, when Draco hadn’t been able to force himself to explain his own feelings. <em>Out of cowardice</em>, he thought. <em>The fear of seeming weak like a thing that can feel hurt, or—worse, so much worse—the fear of showing you what I really am</em>.</p>
<p>And so Merv had given him a quarter, figuring that if he couldn’t use his own words, at least he might be able to give them a glimpse into what he <em>felt</em>.</p>
<p>When the Breakfast first opened, the jukebox was its crowning purchase. It was a 1971 Wurlitzer Zodiac, a big squat rectangular thing that looked more like something one might buy cigarettes or ice cream bars from. It wasn’t beautiful, but Merv had no patience for sockhop nostalgia and loved his jukebox for <em>not</em> being one of those tall arched creations with their colored lights, sculptural and self-satisfied in their retro wholesomeness that smacked of tunes by the Big Bopper and Chubby Checker.</p>
<p>Draco took the quarter and went over to the boxy behemoth to read the long rows of familiar backlit song titles like lines of scripture, his left hand braced on the edge of the machine while his right traced over its glass face. For a moment, his left arm tensed suddenly, fingers twitching hard against the edge of the machine like an electric jolt. He caught his breath and shut his eyes tight, waiting for it to pass.</p>
<p>God, it was <em>close </em>now.</p>
<p>He turned back to look at them, his eyes too wide and too young.</p>
<p>“I told you Harry had nothing to do with this,” he said quietly, hoping they were listening. Hoping they weren’t. “He brought it to me, but he’s not to blame. I cut everything off, left it all behind, put an entire ocean between me and myself.” <em>But I’ve run out of room to run and it’s come back for me. </em>He scraped the edge of the quarter along his lower lip. “I have to deal with it. I’ve been letting this be a fantasy version of my life where nothing else existed before Maine, but I’m afraid I may have realized”—he slid the quarter into the slot—“if I keep refusing to face the things I ran from, the thing I’ll have lost is myself.” He looked at Merv and Tony. “E thirteen.”</p>
<p>“That’s Springsteen,” Merv murmured reflexively, still processing what Draco had said.</p>
<p>“Everything between E and H is Springsteen,” Tony quipped at his partner, also on reflex.</p>
<p>Draco pushed the buttons.</p>
<p>At the opening notes, Merv’s eyes went round and soft. “Oh,” he whispered.</p>
<p>Draco stood in front of the jukebox, head held high, gaze steady.</p>
<p>“<em>Sandy, the fireworks are hailin’ over Little Eden tonight</em>, <em>forcing a light into all those stony faces left stranded on this warm July,</em>” Bruce was singing into the silence of the diner, where the air hung heavy and tense with far too many unsaid things.</p>
<p>Tony, never as good with words as the other two, stepped around Merv and took Draco’s hand, pulling him into a vague approximation of a waltz stance to dance with him as tender and ungainly as a prom date.</p>
<p>“<em>And Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us, this pier lights our carnival life forever.</em>”</p>
<p>“I lost everything,” Draco told Tony barely above a whisper, resting his cheek on his shoulder, pulling Tony close, close.</p>
<p>“<em>Oh, love me tonight, for I may never see you again. Hey, Sandy girl, my, my, baby</em>.”</p>
<p>“I had to,” Draco continued, “to get better. But there are things I need to take back. I don’t know what that means for me. I don’t know what will become of me.”</p>
<p>“<em>Shhh</em>,” Tony said. “You don’t have to figure that out tonight. You’ve got all the time in the world.”</p>
<p>Merv slipped around behind Draco and joined them, one hand on Draco’s waist, the other on Tony’s forearm. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “I always thought it was a matter of time.”</p>
<p>“You did?” Draco asked. “<em>I</em> didn’t.”</p>
<p>“Your father, <em>him</em> you hate,” Merv said. “His friends, and their sons you were expected to befriend, the rest of your family. <em>Them</em>, you don’t long for. But there’s something you miss terribly, some part of yourself you shouldn’t have had to lose.” He smiled against the side of Draco’s neck. Even without being able to see it, Draco could tell it was a sad smile.  “I always hoped if someone let you know you weren’t unwanted there anymore, you might be able to find that thing again.”</p>
<p>“<em>And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag? I got on it last night and my shirt got caught, and they kept me spinning, babe, didn't think I'd ever get off</em>.”</p>
<p>“Harry Potter’s not worth throwing anything away for,” Draco countered.</p>
<p>“No,” Merv agreed. “But he’s the person who hated you once, and he’s moved past that. He <em>cares</em> about you now. Things have <em>changed</em> while you were gone, kiddo.”</p>
<p>“Trying to get rid of me?” Draco asked, a pale smirk in his voice.</p>
<p>“<em>God</em> no. Break my heart to lose you. But you know the musical <em>Company</em>?”</p>
<p>“You know I don’t.”</p>
<p>“‘There’s a time to come to New York,’” Merv recited, “‘and a time to leave.’”</p>
<p>“But I don’t want to.”</p>
<p>“Then don’t,” Tony said, clumsily trying to spin both Draco and Merv together. “Nobody’s gonna make you do a single thing you don’t want to. Not tonight.”</p>
<p>He’d lost hold of both Merv and Draco, so Draco turned Merv to face him and pulled him into a real waltz, leading the smaller man in smooth gliding steps over the checked linoleum.</p>
<p>“<em>Did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do</em>?”</p>
<p>They managed an almost perfect quarter turn in the space between the booths.</p>
<p>“<em>For me this boardwalk life’s through, babe.</em>”</p>
<p>“You get two songs for a quarter,” Merv said. “Tony, go push K ten for me, will ya, hon?” He grinned at Draco with such an impossible loving warmth that it made Draco’s chest ache. “May I have the next dance?”</p>
<p>Merv led him into a quickstep to The Chiffons. Merv always delighted in the fact Draco also knew ballroom dancing and treasured the rare downtime in the diner when they were able to slip in a dance or two together.</p>
<p>Tony stole another quarter from the register and got Draco to pull his hair from its elastic band to teach him to headbang to Skid Row until Draco got dizzy, then pulled Merv and Draco back together to watch them dance to an old Sinatra tune while he served up the last three pieces of his chocolate cherry pie, warm, with vanilla ice cream.</p>
<p>Draco pulled three Americanos to go with them, and was thankful they all instinctively now pretended this was any other snowed-in Friday night, swapping customer horror stories and bickering cheerfully about music, movies, books, while Draco finished his slice of pie and half of Merv’s and tried not to calculate how much longer he could avoid going back out into the world and whatever it held in store for him.</p>
<p>Draco looked down into his empty coffee cup, set it aside, and began to slowly pick up pie crumbs from the two plates in front of him, pressing his thumb against them then licking them off with the tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>Merv had been watching him finish Merv’s pie with a sort of comfy affection, but at that—and the furrow returning to Draco’s brows—he reached over and stacked one plate on the other. He pulled both away from Draco and said, “Hey. You done dancing with me yet, or can I have another?”</p>
<p>Merv pulled Draco by the hand back onto the floor, saying over his shoulder, “Hon, put on something danceable. Dealer’s choice.”</p>
<p>Tony went over to the jukebox with a quarter, thought for a moment, and selected two songs. The opening notes of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” broke through Draco’s melancholy quiet and he smirked at Tony. “Not the most original choice, is it?”</p>
<p>“Hey, Merv said ‘danceable,’” Tony replied. “You get what you get. Next time, don’t ask the guy who listens to Crue and Harry Chapin.”</p>
<p>“Only because high school Tony had some <em>very</em> vivid fantasies about Nikki Sixx,” Merv commented, spinning Draco around. “The Harry Chapin I can’t speak to, other than the fact that our man over there’s sentimental as <em>hell</em>, kiddo.”</p>
<p>As if to prove Merv’s point, Tony smiled soft and secret at the words <em>our man over there</em>.</p>
<p>But he just settled back against the counter to watch Merv and Draco dance.</p>
<p>It was impossible to stay pensive with Merv’s hands on his waist. Merv’s dark eyes shone with laughter and the pure unironic joy of dancing to an old pop song with someone he loved held close in his arms, someone who could match his moves, someone who could move with a liquid silver grace all his own.</p>
<p>Merv threw in some of the old disco he’d learned as a kid back in Queens: the snap, the pull, the point, the Bus Stop. He’d once taught those to Draco on a quiet night like this one, putting on the songs of his youth for the pretty English barista who seemed not to know any music of his own.</p>
<p>A lock of hair fell forward over Merv’s forehead as he pulled Draco into a spin and dip. When Draco came back up, he swept it back into place and kissed Merv, quick and flirting, before moving out of range.</p>
<p>“Tease,” Merv objected.</p>
<p>“Well, if <em>that</em> isn’t the pot calling the kettle,” Tony remarked. “Takes one to know one, babe.”</p>
<p>ABBA faded into silence then for a couple of seconds as the jukebox changed tracks to Tony’s second selection.</p>
<p>At the opening saxophone notes of “Careless Whisper,” Merv shot Tony a knowing grin.</p>
<p>“You told me dealer’s choice,” Tony replied with a shrug.</p>
<p>Merv and Draco pulled each other close.</p>
<p>Draco, who had been raised on the waltz and foxtrot, wasn’t sure he could call what he and Merv did a <em>dance</em> in the most proper sense. It seemed more like a distant cousin to the prom date hold-and-sway. A distant, <em>distant</em> cousin, heady and amorous, made for people unafraid of moving their bodies against each other.</p>
<p>Draco draped his arms over Merv’s shoulders with casual certain intimacy, his wrists crossed pretty and languid behind Merv’s neck.</p>
<p>Merv’s hands were on Draco’s waist, the fingers of one hand working their way gently up under the fabric of Draco’s t-shirt to push against cool pale skin as he pressed himself smooth and easy up against Draco’s body from chest to stomach.</p>
<p>Draco drew his lower lip between his teeth, watching Merv watch his mouth as he did it, the two of them dancing—because it <em>was</em> dancing, really, whatever any ballroom instructor might suggest—fluid and certain with each other, against each other.</p>
<p>Draco slid one hand down Merv’s back to his ass, as firm and lovely and slender as the rest of him, pulling their hips flush, rolling them against each other with the music, closer and closer, pressed hard together.</p>
<p>Merv’s lips parted in a breathless almost-smile, his eyes sparkling so bright and dark. He craned his neck up to meet Draco’s mouth with his own, fervent with wanting. Their lips and tongues moved against each other, smooth and rhythmic as the rest of their dance, drifting farther and farther away from anything that might be allowed on a public dancefloor.</p>
<p>Merv shifted one thigh between Draco’s, grinding up against him, as his hand roamed farther up under Draco’s shirt, pushing the fabric up between them.</p>
<p>Draco moved his other hand to join the first on Merv’s ass.</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ, you two,” Tony said with a chuckle. “Don’t know if you noticed, but there’s this giant thing next to you called a <em>window</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s snowing,” Draco said, voice a little ragged. “You said nobody was going to be wandering around in this weather.”</p>
<p>Tony took each of them by the arm. “C’mon, pretend to have a modicum of decency,” he said, pulling them both towards the kitchen.</p>
<p>The kitchen was clean and orderly now, looking for all the world like the diner was closed for the night. The only evidence left of its current occupants were the dishes from pierogi and pie, left abandoned out front.</p>
<p>Merv leaned back against one of the prep counters, head tilted to one side, regarding Tony with wide playful eyes. “I <em>notice</em>,” he said, flirtatiously nonchalant, “you solved your decency problem by moving us in <em>here</em>, away from any windows. If I didn’t know better…”</p>
<p>Tony was kissing Merv then, strong and gentle, hungry and tender, pulling Merv’s slim frame against his own, running one hand down the sweep of his back, sliding the fingers of the other through Merv’s dark perfect hair, all with the certainty of knowing someone else’s body as well as he did his own.</p>
<p>Draco hopped up on the edge of Tony’s baking counter opposite them and watched. He was brimming with the warmth he felt for them, which he had taken his time in learning to call <em>love</em>. And, still, rarely aloud.</p>
<p>But he knew they both knew.</p>
<p>Merv, lovely Merv. Merv, who was only <em>almost</em> as guilty of talking with his wrists and walking with his hips as he had praised Draco for being. Merv, who wore button-up dress shirts and slacks every day to work in a diner kitchen. Deceptively clean-cut, sweet as cream, tough as nails, and sexy as all hell. Who held behind that handsome face and easy smile a decade of mistakes and a thousand little hurts on his long twisting path from Queens to Ogunquit, with the big open heart he offered—opened and unprotected—over and over, until finally, Tony was the man who deserved to hold it, cradled in those big strong hands.</p>
<p>As attractive as they found each other, Merv and Draco could never have been anything together on their own. They were too alike in too many ways, like a matched set, one of them honey and the other vinegar.</p>
<p>But they had Tony. <em>Tony</em>.</p>
<p>Merv had been the one to invite Draco in. He had been the one to open that door they all saw coming unlocked. <em>Merv</em> had started that conversation, open and frank and matter-of-fact.</p>
<p>
  <em>I think we all see where this could be heading, kiddo. If you want.</em>
</p>
<p>But they all knew Tony was where it began. Ever the gentleman and impossibly in love with Merv, he hadn’t done a thing on his own. Nor had Draco. Nothing would ever have come of it, if Merv hadn’t the courage and open-heartedness to start the conversation for them.</p>
<p><em>God knows we’ve had nights where I’ve picked out a burly stranger to my liking for us to take home. Only I think this’ll be something different than that. You’re not just some agreeable bear with no last name, in town for the week and down for some fun. You’re </em>Alfie<em>. You’re one of us. I dunno what’s gonna happen. I can’t promise I’ve got a fucking clue what I’m doing either. This is uncharted territory for all of us. But if you’re game to give it a try, we could figure it out together.</em></p>
<p>So for the last year and a half, they’d all made it up as they went along, having found a place that felt right, that felt comfortable, like home, as hard as it was to define with any single simple word.</p>
<p>Merv was murmuring something in Tony’s ear now, one hand toying with the buttons on the chest of his flannel shirt without undoing them, the other beckoning Draco over.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to twist <em>my</em> arm,” Tony remarked, smiling down at Merv. He gave him one last lingering kiss, and turned to Draco.</p>
<p>Merv gave Tony a gentle push in Draco’s direction and settled back against the counter to let this play out. There was something special in Tony and Draco together that Merv rarely passed up a chance to watch.</p>
<p>Draco rearranged himself on the baking counter to make room for Tony to stand between his legs.</p>
<p>Tony ran a hand through Draco’s hair, sliding his fingers around to the back of his head, guiding Draco’s mouth up to his.</p>
<p>Draco leaned up into the kiss, lips parted, as Tony drew him in, strong and certain.</p>
<p>Every one of Tony’s kisses wanted the other person to know how much he meant it, with his fingers combed through Draco’s hair and Draco’s face turned up to meet Tony's mouth, open and searching and safe. Sometimes, Draco couldn't tell the difference anymore between loving someone and maybe being a little <em>in</em> love. And knowing Tony had made his own peace with having blurred that line for himself ages ago, and knowing Merv saw that better than either of them and adored them both all the more for it.</p>
<p>And still, and still, Draco could want someone else, someone all his own. And still, that was allowed to be a missing thing, and he was allowed—<em>encouraged</em>—to want to search it out.</p>
<p>But not right now, not tonight. Tonight, he could just lean into the partner he had here, who was kissing Draco in that deliberate way of his, unhesitating in his affection.</p>
<p>Draco let out a hungry little gasp as Tony slid his tongue into Draco’s mouth.</p>
<p>Draco responded in kind, pressing himself up against Tony, his hands braced over Tony’s biceps, fingers grasping. Tony felt so solid against him, so strong and soft, with those thick arms, with the promise of so much muscle beneath his substantial bulk, with such stark and wonderful contrast to Merv’s slim body, lithe and lovely.</p>
<p>Draco had no real sense of how long they kissed; he knew he tugged Tony’s lower lip between his teeth; he knew Tony made a quiet rough sound in his throat in response; he knew he dug his fingers into Tony’s arms harder, ground his hips against Tony, low against his belly; he knew Tony tugged the elastic band from his hair to tangle his fingers in deeper.</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ,” Merv said, still against his prep counter, subconsciously biting his lower lip, his eyes bright. “God, I could watch you two forever.”</p>
<p>Tony grinned at Draco, who laughed breathily against his neck.</p>
<p>“Ought we to hold him to that,” Draco said, a smug smile tracing its way across his kiss-pink mouth.</p>
<p>Tony exchanged a look with Merv that bore an entire silent conversation in a single moment. Then he leaned forward to kiss Draco again, deep and fierce, pulling Draco’s torso upward against his own as he reached down to cup his hands under Draco’s ass, lifting him up from the counter.</p>
<p>Draco tightened his hold around Tony’s shoulder, as Tony moved him, a little clumsily, to turn them around, setting Draco down a bit hard with a quiet <em>oof</em> breathed into the side of Draco’s neck.</p>
<p>“Graceful,” Draco commented.</p>
<p>“Hey, I do my best,” Tony retorted amiably, hefting himself up onto the edge of the counter where Draco had just been. “I’m only so strong here. Not <em>my</em> fault you’ve classed out of welterweight, princess.” He was pulling Draco to him again, working his big rough hands up under Draco’s t-shirt, pushing the fabric up to Draco’s chest.</p>
<p>Tony kissed Draco along his mouth, his neck, down his throat, as he ran his hands over Draco’s bare stomach, his sides, forever comfortable with letting his touches press and squeeze lovingly into the round thick places. He slipped a hand up to Draco’s chest, searched out one nipple with its silver piercing, and teased his fingertips over it, not <em>quite</em> pinching, but <em>almost</em>, until Draco writhed against him, needy and shuddering.</p>
<p>Which was when Merv took Draco by the wrist and turned him around, pushing him backwards against Tony.</p>
<p>“Is this a dance for two, or can I cut in?” Merv beamed up at Draco impishly. For as serious as Tony was, Merv’s own attitude towards lovemaking was relentlessly cheerful, all ease and fun.</p>
<p>Draco arched his eyebrow at Merv in invitation, knowing full well he wasn’t coming across half as cool and aloof as he pretended, not with flushed cheeks, his arousal, breath coming a little too fast, hair loose and tousled, shirt rucked up to his chest. “That all depends. What did you have in mind?”</p>
<p>Merv gave him that grin again in response, before pressing their mouths together, his tongue darting between Draco’s parted lips, light and teasing.</p>
<p>“He’s going to suck your pretty cock, princess,” Tony murmured in Draco’s ear.</p>
<p>Draco shuddered at the warm low rasp in Tony’s voice, as Merv chuckled and turned his gaze up to meet Tony’s. Draco felt the electric crackle of their eyes on each other before Merv craned his neck upward, standing up on the balls of his feet, to kiss Tony over Draco’s shoulder, long and fervent.</p>
<p>“God, hon,” he said when he pulled away, a little breathless. “<em>God</em>, I love you.”</p>
<p>But let go of Tony to pull Draco back into another kiss, a playful lingering exploration of tongues and breath.</p>
<p>Merv’s hands wandered up and down the bare skin of Draco’s exposed torso, as Tony’s lips met the place just below Draco’s ear.</p>
<p>Draco was running his fingers through Merv’s hair, over the lines of his lovely shoulders, lovely back, lovely narrow waist.</p>
<p>“He’s right, you know,” Merv commented to Draco.</p>
<p>“He usually is,” Draco agreed.</p>
<p>Beaming, Merv leaned down just enough to close his mouth over one nipple, toying with the silver piercing using the tip of his tongue, as if in a promise of what he would do next, while he unfastened Draco’s jeans between them.</p>
<p>Merv came back up to meet Tony’s eyes with a wink, then kissed Draco one last time before slipping gracefully to his knees. He curled his fingers into Draco’s jeans and boxer briefs and tugged them down around his thighs.</p>
<p>He danced soft kisses up and down the inside of Draco’s thighs, his fingertips tracing the same path his lips had taken, nails whispering over the plush pale skin.</p>
<p>One of Tony’s hands trailed down Draco’s belly to that place below his navel where it was softest, his fingers spreading over the sensitive swell of that lower curve; his hand curled over it, hard, possessive, and so, so loving.</p>
<p>Merv pressed his lips to Draco’s skin at the edge of Tony’s grasp, and to each of Tony’s fingers in turn. He nipped a mischievous bite to the underside of Draco’s belly, so damned <em>close</em> that Draco could feel Merv’s breath on his cock like a huff of laughter.</p>
<p>“Can you just—get on with it?” Any attempt at composure was undermined somewhat by the way Draco’s breath hitched on the words.</p>
<p>His hands hovered over Merv’s head, fingers ghosting over his dark hair.</p>
<p>“So fucking demanding,” Tony chuckled against Draco’s neck, his beard rasping over sensitive skin.</p>
<p>“Brat,” Merv agreed conversationally, before licking a long stripe lightly up the underside of Draco’s cock with the very tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>Draco drew in a sharp gasp. Tony ran his other hand up Draco’s throat, along his jaw, turning Draco’s head to kiss him—deep fierce open-mouthed kisses wet with longing.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Merv worked slow and casual, his mouth moving over Draco in a dozen different ways, from delicate to hard and back again, lips and tongue and the occasional slight calculated hint of teeth. He always took his sweet time, doing it as much for his own self-indulgent pleasure and entertainment as for the recipient’s.</p>
<p>Maybe more.</p>
<p>It was maddening; it was marvelous; it was beautiful; it was torture.</p>
<p>And Tony’s hands roamed over Draco’s chest, his belly, his hips, his neck, touching him everywhere he liked to be touched, holding him firm. He kissed him, Draco’s face still turned up to his, lovely and pale and pink and as open as a flower.</p>
<p>It was almost too much, having both of their mouths on him at once like this, both sets of hands on his body.</p>
<p>He was aware of his own fingers laced through Merv’s hair, of the fact he was gasping and moaning and letting out a string of words he couldn’t entirely stop—obscenities and pleas and declarations of his own feelings he was too guarded to voice otherwise—as Merv took him deeper and deeper in his mouth, as Tony bit and sucked along the side of his neck, hard and a little painful in exactly the way Draco liked.</p>
<p>It would leave marks, he knew.</p>
<p>Draco arched back into Tony, curving his spine along the shape of his body, pressing into him, feeling the row of buttons down Tony’s flannel shirt against his bare skin.</p>
<p>He brought one hand up to grip at Tony’s hair, touch his face, comb his fingers against his beard, press against his jaw to ask him to bite harder, then to bring Tony’s mouth back to his own.</p>
<p>Tony obliged.</p>
<p>Draco could feel two strong calloused hands—one large, one slender—interlace their fingers over his hip.</p>
<p>And then Draco was coming, with a helpless cry muffled into the kiss he didn’t quite pull away from, his grasp in Merv’s hair loosening involuntarily.</p>
<p>He heard Merv swallow somewhere below him, before leaning forward to rest his forehead against Draco’s stomach for a minute, laughing quietly with pure uncomplicated happiness.</p>
<p>His fingers were still lightly entwined with Tony’s over Draco’s skin.</p>
<p>Tony was kissing Draco again—little chaste kisses now—on his lips, his cheeks, one on the tip of his nose. “Christ, you’re so fucking <em>pretty</em> like this,” he said.</p>
<p>Merv got back to his feet, drawing the side of his thumb across his mouth. He beamed at them both in easy open affection. He stretched and smoothed down the front of his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair to get it back in place, then started to laugh. “Gotta say, I sure hope we were right about nobody trying to come by the diner,” he said. “Come on, you two, let’s clean up.”</p>
<p>Draco tugged his shirt down and his jeans up. He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled it back into its elastic band, knowing that the loose strands around his face likely still looked as tousled as he felt.</p>
<p>The three of them made quick work over the last of their dishes from the counter out front, and as he put the last plate on the rack, Merv announced, “Hey! Do you remember how I’ve grown so wise and mature in my old age, with foresight and—?”</p>
<p>“Is this about how you’ve got half a joint left?” Tony cut in.</p>
<p>Merv nodded. “I love having a reason to be out in the snow.”</p>
<p>“Good thing you moved to Maine then,” Tony grumbled and kissed Merv as he went to get their winter coats.</p>
<p>A couple minutes later, they sat on the loading dock ledge that was just far enough under the edge of the roof to be somewhat snow-bare. Merv had his half-joint, while Tony produced another fresh one from somewhere.</p>
<p>“<em>This</em>,” he informed them, “is why I’m the only one here who made Eagle Scout: Be prepared.”</p>
<p>So Merv had his and Tony shared the other with Draco, while sitting in the middle and letting both Merv and Draco cozy up to him for warmth.</p>
<p>Tony watched Draco fondly. “You always look like Molly Ringwald in <em>The Breakfast Club </em>when you do that, you know, the prom queen smoking the delinquent’s pot.”</p>
<p>“The Criminal,” Merv corrected him. “That was his character’s official title. Archetype. Whatever.”</p>
<p>“What was Molly Ringwald’s?” Tony asked.</p>
<p>Merv beamed. “The Princess.”</p>
<p>“Tony,” Draco said. “You <em>did</em> lock the door when you put up the note, right?”</p>
<p>“Yep. About ninety percent sure. But if someone’s gonna break in to rob an empty diner in a snowstorm, they’ve got more problems than we can help ‘em with.”</p>
<p>They fell quiet then, watching the tumble of snow catching in the floodlight on the back of the diner by the dumpster.</p>
<p>Draco was starting to feel like all the sharp edges that lived inside him had grown a little duller, replaced by a giddy calm. He turned over the events of the evening in his head, setting aside the things that he was afraid he’d regret later.</p>
<p>That was for tomorrow him to beat himself up over.</p>
<p>Tonight him was savoring the good parts like cherry pie.</p>
<p>“My teeth are too big,” he announced suddenly.</p>
<p>Merv let out a short surprised laugh, choking on a mouthful of smoke.</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ,” Tony said, rolling his eyes and squeezing Draco harder with the arm slung around his waist.</p>
<p>“I was just thinking of the things you said about me,” Draco explained. “Pre-Raphaelite mouth and whatnot.”</p>
<p>Merv was laughing into Tony’s side. “Oy vey. Just take the compliment. So what? At least you don’t have, you know, little shoepeg corn teeth.”</p>
<p>“No, I… Never mind.” Draco gave up and cuddled back into Tony, taking the joint back from him.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just that they were a shade too large.</p>
<p>It was that they were his mother’s teeth. They were the same teeth he saw in every Black family portrait, over and over, like seeing himself in a hall of mirrors.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s why he’d learned so young to keep his smiles small and often close-lipped, because at least that was one thing he could pretend to hide, in a whole face of features borrowed from the same spare parts reused over and over <em>ad nauseam</em> on generations of people with whom he wanted to share nothing.</p>
<p>And here he was, ready to reclaim that connection.</p>
<p>At least this time, it would be on his own terms.</p>
<p>Merv pulled them into the back parking lot to kick up snow and throw their heads back to catch flakes on their tongues, laughing like kids. They tried to make snowballs, but it was still too fresh and fluffy to stick together. Tony’s beard clung with fat white flakes, making him look like he’d gone fully salt-and-pepper. Merv made a teasing comment about Santa Claus; Tony responded with an innuendo about Merv sitting on his lap.</p>
<p>Draco arched an eyebrow at them with a slow smirk. “Oh no,” he said, “are you really implying that <em>Merv’s</em> been a good boy this year?”</p>
<p>Merv laughed and lamented the lack of a fat bearded man at Hanukkah, and Tony told him that the meaning of Christmas was <em>not</em>, in fact, about wanting to bone Santa.</p>
<p>“Speaking of,” Draco said, “if after all of <em>that</em>”—he gestured towards the back of the kitchen—“you two aren’t having <em>great</em> sex when you get home, I shall be <em>sorely</em> disappointed in you.” He smiled, smug and serene. “You’re welcome.”</p>
<p>Merv shoved him on the shoulder. “Don’t give yourself <em>all</em> the credit there,” he said. “After all, <em>I</em> did most of the work. You owe me.”</p>
<p>Draco arched one eyebrow. “<em>Oh?</em> Is that so?”</p>
<p>Merv considered. “You could come over tonight, if you’re up for it.”</p>
<p>He wished he could. He wanted to more than anything.</p>
<p>But there was something coming for him, far sooner than he wanted.</p>
<p>He knew the diner was probably safe. It was a public place, a Muggle business. Nobody would touch him here.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure he could say the same of a private home. He wasn’t sure he could keep Merv and Tony out of harm if he spent the night in their bed instead of his own.</p>
<p>Not with the way his Dark Mark still hurt intermittently as someone monitored his location, more and more often all day, as if losing patience.</p>
<p>Someone close.</p>
<p>“Merv, I’m flattered,” Draco said, finding a nonchalant tone. “Really I am. But between the dancing, the pierogi, and the blow job, I’m going to go home and pass out.”</p>
<p>“And like three slices of pie,” Tony volunteered.</p>
<p>“Thanks for the reminder,” Draco told him drily. “I rest my case.”</p>
<p>Tony laughed and wrapped his arms around Draco.</p>
<p>Merv sang something about <em>snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes</em>, then suggested Draco could use snowfall as mascara, since his eyelashes were basically white to begin with.</p>
<p>Draco tried to make a snowball and ended up lobbing a handful of loose snow in Merv’s general direction.</p>
<p>They were close and loving, huddled from the cold and from having come through a difficult conversation that only one of them truly understood.</p>
<p>Merv pulled them together in his arms, kissed each one long and sweet in turn, and sang them each snippets of songs in his clear high school musical theatre voice.</p>
<p>“<em>You can’t start a fire without a spark,</em>” he sang to Tony. “<em>This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just dancing in the dark.</em>”</p>
<p>To Draco, he sang, “<em>Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City</em>.”</p>
<p>And the snow fell around them as if in slow motion, as if they were alone in a snowglobe dream, where everything was tragic and romantic and beautiful, fading to black in the night sky. Just as a good ending should feel.</p>
<p>When Draco got home, McLaggen was waiting for him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen.</p>
<p>This is definitely by far the longest chapter in this thing, so a big thanks to anyone who stuck around to the end :)</p>
<p>(Not only is it the longest chapter, it also contains what's <em>somehow</em> the first sex scene I've ever written.)</p>
<p>Also, I did <a href="https://theo-winterwood.tumblr.com/post/626037242490732544/an-illustration-i-did-of-all-the-primary-and">some art</a> of the primary and secondary characters. (At least, the ones I actually wanted to draw. I know at least one of them hasn't officially shown up yet in story, though.)</p>
<p>I hope folks are still enjoying, even though I definitely got this chapter done later than I'd meant to!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Fifteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>I’m in the dance band on the Titanic</em><br/>
<em>Sing “Nearer, My God, to Thee”</em><br/>
<em>The iceberg’s on the starboard bow</em><br/>
<em>Won’t you dance with me</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The living room light was on, glowing yellow through the cracks in the shutters as Malfoy walked up the front path.</p>
<p>He noted the other set of footprints heading towards his front door, then away, before returning yet again; the first two sets were blurred by the evening’s snowfall, but the most recent set was fresh, maybe less than an hour so old.</p>
<p>They were the prints of a big man with a heavy footstep. Not Dubenich, then.</p>
<p>Malfoy clenched his teeth grimly at the conclusion he could draw from <em>that</em>, as he closed a gloved hand around his doorknob without even bothering to try to unlock it first.</p>
<p>It wasn’t locked.</p>
<p>McLaggen sat on the little couch, right in the middle, as though it was just a particularly wide armchair, as though the space was his to take.</p>
<p>He had tracked snow inside, Malfoy noticed, focusing for a few moments too long on the drips of now-melted water, flecked with dirt, trailing from the door over the floorboards and onto the living room rug.</p>
<p>That was easier to look at than the broad man in Auror robes, regarding him as though Malfoy’s presence in his own home was a victory in itself.</p>
<p>“Death Eater Malfoy,” McLaggen said, grinning.</p>
<p>Malfoy resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he took off his gloves and hat, shoving them into his coat pockets. <em>Jesus, subtlety never </em>was<em> a Gryffindor trait, was it?</em></p>
<p>He arched an eyebrow at McLaggen, detached and icily polite. “Good evening, Auror, ah…”</p>
<p>He let the implied question hang in the air for McLaggen to answer.</p>
<p>“McLaggen,” he said, the triumph on his face wavering a little as the first clouds of anger began to roll in. “<em>Auror</em> McLaggen. As you know.”</p>
<p>Malfoy pursed his lips apologetically. “<em>Have</em> we met?” he asked, as he undid the snaps down the front of his coat, followed by the zipper. “Ever so sorry, I’m afraid I don’t recall.”</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>.” McLaggen scowled. “Cormac McLaggen. We were at Hogwarts at the same time.”</p>
<p>Malfoy silently thanked fate that McLaggen started his Auror training after Malfoy was already in Azkaban, so they’d never actually had to associate professionally.</p>
<p>At least, not until now.</p>
<p>Shrugging off his coat and scarf and hanging them on a hook, Malfoy shook his head. “Mmm, no, doesn’t ring a bell.”</p>
<p>“Are you <em>seriously</em> pretending you have no memory of going to school together?” McLaggen demanded, rising to his feet.</p>
<p>
  <em>God, but he’s big.</em>
</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Malfoy said, “I only remember the cute ones.”</p>
<p>That seemed less antagonistic than, <em>You seem to think you were much more memorable than you actually were.</em></p>
<p>Either way, he figured it was unwise to bait a hostile Auror like this. But he knew he would lose a little respect for himself if he played nice <em>too</em> readily here.</p>
<p>Or maybe that joint he’d shared with Tony had dulled his sense of caution some.</p>
<p>Either way, he felt spiteful and unafraid, and far calmer than he would have expected.</p>
<p>Malfoy stepped into the living room and looked up at McLaggen serenely.</p>
<p>McLaggen looked back, dragging an unpleasant gaze down Malfoy’s body, somewhere between disgust and a smirking self-satisfaction, as though Malfoy was something that had experienced a visible fall, as though the mere sight of him was a <em>schadenfreude</em> on its own.</p>
<p>Malfoy fought back a stupid instinct to cross his arms over himself. Instead, he tucked a loose tendril of hair behind one ear, painfully aware a second too late of the small flourish that naturally flicked from his fingertips with the gesture.</p>
<p>That sudden flicker of self-consciousness about his own body language stemmed from the fact McLaggen represented <em>before</em>, back when Malfoy’s movements were such a careful study in stiff unadorned formality. It seemed suddenly dangerous to be so <em>himself</em> in front of a person from the time when he fought every day to keep those things hidden.</p>
<p>“To what do I owe the pleasure, Auror—McLaggen, you said?”</p>
<p>“Don’t play dumb, Malfoy. You know damned well what this is about.”</p>
<p>Malfoy tilted his head to the side and waited with what he hoped was a look of patient expectation and not a desire to kick this man several times where it would hurt most.</p>
<p>“Potter visited you last weekend—”</p>
<p>“<em>Auror</em> Potter,” Malfoy corrected him in a deferential murmur.</p>
<p>“—and told you to sign the paperwork confirming the government’s ownership of the remainder of what used to be your family’s property.”</p>
<p>“Hmm.” Malfoy looked thoughtful. “First off, I don’t think <em>visited</em> is the word you want to use for the purpose you describe. Second, I <em>did</em> return the paperwork to him, and to my knowledge, he was going to deliver it when he returned to England. If that wasn’t done, that’s <em>hardly</em> within my control.”</p>
<p>“He <em>did</em> deliver it,” McLaggen snapped.</p>
<p>“Oh, good. Glad to hear it. What’s this about, then?”</p>
<p>“You know damned well—”</p>
<p>“Don’t give me that line a second time,” Malfoy cut in, a hard edge in his voice now. “It usually works, doesn’t it? Telling some poor soul they know damned well what they’ve done and what you’re here for, so that they’re backed into confessing more than they have any obligation to? ‘You know damned well what this is about,’” Malfoy said in imitation of McLaggen’s imperious hero-cop tone, and then sarcastically, in the style of a frightened suspect: “‘Oh, no, sir, those weren’t <em>my</em> black market dragon scales, I <em>swear</em>, I’d never seen them before, they’re my brother-in-law’s, go ask <em>him</em>.’” He met McLaggen’s gaze, trying to look braver than he felt. “So <em>you</em> tell <em>me</em>. What’s this about?”</p>
<p>He realized that the expression he gave himself was channeling Potter’s defiant look, with that upward set of his chin.</p>
<p>“Your presence is required at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to resolve the issue of your response to the Aurors’—request.”</p>
<p>“Request?” Malfoy’s eyebrows went up. “And if I were to point out that you can’t <em>require</em> me to go to <em>London</em> to clear up a paperwork discrepancy? What if <em>my</em> request is to be sent a new version <em>here</em> to review, now that I’ve provided my suggestions?”</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid. You’re coming in either way, Malfoy. Might as well not make this hard on yourself.”</p>
<p>Malfoy favored him with his most unimpressed look. “I really shouldn’t tell you how many of these lines I already know, should I? The Department may want to consider updating its suggested scripts.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you suggesting if I don’t agree to come with—which I <em>don’t</em>, for the record—then your plan is to, what, <em>arrest</em> me?”</p>
<p>McLaggen grinned, sensing things might be back on his footing. “Got it in one, Malfoy. You’re not as dense as they say.”</p>
<p>“Don’t try that; you just make yourself look foolish. I <em>know</em> nobody says that about me.” Malfoy bit his lower lip, scratched it with his thumbnail, and then reminded himself he was <em>not</em> to show concern in front of this man. “What would you be arresting me for, then?”</p>
<p>“Resisting cooperation.”</p>
<p>“That’s not a thing.”</p>
<p>“Failure to comply.”</p>
<p>“Neither is that. Look, I’m a Death Eater. You said so yourself. If you can’t fabricate even a flimsy excuse to arrest me, you’re on shakier ground than I thought. Where’s Auror Potter? He was the one handling this and I’d prefer to continue dealing with him.”</p>
<p>“He’s been taken off this assignment,” McLaggen informed him, a little too happily.</p>
<p>“On what grounds? He had been doing an admirable job.”</p>
<p>“Head Auror Abernathy would disagree with <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh, really? Would he? Because compared with <em>others</em> I’ve dealt with as of late, I found Auror Potter’s competence and professionalism surprisingly adequate.”</p>
<p>Something dangerous glinted in McLaggen’s eyes then.</p>
<p>Perhaps Malfoy had pushed too far.</p>
<p>He sat down in the cane-seat chair across from the couch—<em>not</em> “Potter’s chair”—and folded his hands gracefully in his lap. “All right,” he said, “let’s hear it then.”</p>
<p>“Hear what?”</p>
<p>“Whatever you came here to say. I assume there’s a spiel of some kind you’ve prepared?”</p>
<p>McLaggen blinked at him in a way that reminded Malfoy of a look he used to get in a Quidditch match sometimes, in brief time Gryffindor let him on the pitch as their Keeper. It was the look of someone half a second too slow to follow what was happening, and it made Malfoy feel viciously superior to see.</p>
<p>“A spiel?” McLaggen repeated.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, did you need a definition? A spiel is—”</p>
<p>“I know what it is,” McLaggen snapped. “You want me to go over everything again for you? What, were you not <em>following</em>? Do you not <em>understand</em> ‘you’re coming with me?’”</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed and crossed his legs at the ankle, leaning back into the chair. “No, I understood you perfectly well. I just expected a little more professionalism. Maybe an attempt at eloquence. It’s insulting enough being told I’m being dragged back to the Aurors,” he said, “without them <em>also</em> sending someone entirely sans panache.” He picked a bit of lint from the sleeve of his cardigan and flicked it to the floor in a careless unhurried flutter of his long fingers. “At the very least, <em>Dubenich</em> came with fancy four-syllable words and an amusing dedication to citing legal policy.”</p>
<p>McLaggen’s face took on an even stronger appearance of gathering stormclouds. “Listen, you smarmy little bastard, you’re not winning anything for yourself by being a smartarse. That’s not going to change your options here.”</p>
<p>Malfoy said, “And those would be, again?”</p>
<p>“You <em>know</em> what they are. Refusing to cooperate isn’t going to change anything.”</p>
<p>“Of course, I’m well aware I’m not making any difference, from a legal standpoint,” Malfoy continued, regarding McLaggen shrewdly. “But it makes me feel ever <em>so</em> much better to make your job less fun for you. But let’s say I <em>did</em> want to change my options and was willing to try, right here and now. What would you expect me to do? Attack you?”</p>
<p>He stood as he spoke with such a level calm, looking McLaggen in the eyes, unblinking.</p>
<p>McLaggen’s hand instinctively went to his wand, drawing it in the practiced way drilled into Aurors during training: not quite getting into position to use it, lest it read like an attack, but being one short movement away from that.</p>
<p>Malfoy rolled his eyes. “A bit overkill, don’t you think, when I’m unarmed, so the most I could do to you is throw a punch.”</p>
<p>“Are you threatening an officer of the law with physical violence?” McLaggen asked, a smirk spreading across his face as he felt things tilt back in his favor.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, fucking Christ.</em>
</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy said stiffly. There was no possible win scenario for him in a <em>yes</em>. As much as he’d dearly like to know what it felt like to sock McLaggen, now that he’d learned to throw a decent right hook from Merv.</p>
<p>“Good,” McLaggen said, not putting his wand away. He sneered at Malfoy; the expression was gauche on McLaggen’s face, Malfoy thought, as someone who had spent a lifetime perfecting an entire collection of sneers, all of them so much more practiced and scathing. “As though I could really be <em>threatened</em> by a washed-up out-of-shape Death Eater who—”</p>
<p>“I’m not out of shape.” It was a stupid little point to latch onto, but Malfoy found himself affronted by the idea that him <em>now</em>—hale and healthy, who worked all day on his feet carrying heavy things, who walked miles everywhere—was somehow a decline from the shattered teenage insomniac from his Hogwarts days, running off raw nerves, fear, and hate.</p>
<p>“Fine, what do you <em>want</em> me to say,” McLaggen shot back, his patience wearing thin, “that you’re a fat-arse nancy boy? You like that?” Draco Malfoy was supposed to be afraid of him and what he represented. If not <em>afraid</em>, then at the very least, he could have the common courtesy to get angry and step out of line, so McLaggen could put him back in his place. Even if McLaggen had to goad Malfoy over that line himself.</p>
<p>Malfoy caught his breath for a fraction of a second at that, but then managed to shrug as if in casual acceptance of that description. It wasn’t that he was hurt by the words; it wasn’t the first time someone had thrown something like at him, expecting to make a hit, and it wouldn’t be the last.</p>
<p>But coming from <em>McLaggen</em>, it threw Malfoy into doing some quick mental calculus: Did he know for certain that Malfoy was gay, or was that just a reasonable guess? If he knew, how? Was it just from talking to him these past minutes? Was it from Dubenich’s report on him? Was it from something he’d seen <em>himself?</em> Had he been by the diner? What about Tony, what about Merv? Were they safe from any connection to Malfoy?</p>
<p>He kept all those calculations inside, as he shrugged and said, “Yes, that would indeed be preferable, thank you.”</p>
<p>McLaggen glared at him, big hands balling and unballing into fists.</p>
<p>Malfoy smiled at McLaggen’s frustration with him for not losing his cool enough to make this visit fun. It was a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes, like the surface of a frozen lake. “So, to recap, my options are to cooperate and come with you, or to <em>not</em> cooperate and <em>still</em> come with you?”</p>
<p>McLaggen nodded. “The second is less pleasant. For you.”</p>
<p>Malfoy knew without needing to think it through that there were far too many ways that McLaggen could ensure he did his job, and far too few ways Malfoy could complicate that. Fewer still that would stand even a sliver of a chance of tipping the scales in his favor.</p>
<p>As much as it rankled his arrogance and obstinacy, cooperation was probably the safest and most dignified approach.</p>
<p>Malfoy sighed, a long put-upon sigh, just a touch theatrical. “Fine. I’m getting bored of you, anyway,” he told McLaggen, waving a hand as if shooing off the entire conversation they’d just had. “There’s no sport in needling someone who can’t dish it back.” He tucked another loose strand of hair behind one ear and tilted his head slightly to one side. “So how does this work? Am I to come with you now? Or can I just promise I’ll come out to London when I have a chance, and you’ll trust that I mean it?”</p>
<p>“Like anyone would ever trust <em>you</em>. You’re coming now. Obviously.” McLaggen jerked his head towards the front door. “Come on, get your coat and quit stalling.”</p>
<p>“I’m not in custody. I have the right to—”</p>
<p>“Death Eater Draco Malfoy, you are being placed in the custody of the Auror Department, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic. From this point forward, all movements and actions are at the behest of the Auror Department and its officers.”</p>
<p>“Oh. You could have saved yourself rather a lot of time if you’d just started there when I walked in.”</p>
<p>“Where would the fun have been in that?” McLaggen asked.</p>
<p>“You didn’t have fun,” Malfoy reminded him, not bothering to stop the note of condescension from creeping into his voice. “You <em>wanted</em> to, but forgot who you were coming for.”</p>
<p>“Think a lot of yourself, don’t you.”</p>
<p>“So I’ve been told. I don’t think my high opinion of myself is unearned.” He paused. “Am I allowed a phone call? I need to let my job know I won’t be in. If I were being arrested, I’d be allowed to send one owl, so I feel it’s only fair to let me—”</p>
<p>“Three minutes,” McLaggen said.</p>
<p>“Fine. I’ll be right back.” Malfoy turned towards his bedroom door, but stopped when McLaggen reached forward to block his path with one thick muscled arm. “My telephone is in the bedroom. I need to go in there.”</p>
<p>“Not letting you out of my sight. Don’t want you <em>trying</em> anything.”</p>
<p>Malfoy fought back a desire to grind his teeth together in exasperation. “<em>Fine</em>. Follow me and eavesdrop, I don’t give a fuck.”</p>
<p>He was grateful when he walked in that he had left his prescription on the bedside table by the phone, allowing him to slip the canister into the pocket of his cardigan as he picked up the receiver and dialed Merv’s cell number from muscle memory.</p>
<p>Merv answered on the second ring. “Hey! Change your mind about coming over? ‘Cause if so, hurry over quick. I know they say patience is a virtue, but I’ll be honest, right now I’m not feeling <em>particularly</em> virtuous. So—”</p>
<p>“Merv, wait, stop,” Malfoy interrupted. “That’s not why I’m calling. I… I can’t do that.”</p>
<p>There was a short pause, then Merv asked, more seriously, “What’s up? Is everything okay?”</p>
<p>“Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe.”</p>
<p>“What? That’s literally every possible answer. What’s going on?”</p>
<p>Malfoy glanced over his shoulder at McLaggen looming in the doorway. Probably not a wise move to violate the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in front of the Auror who had him in custody. “I can’t really explain,” he said. “I just wanted to call and let you know something came up, so I won’t be at work tomorrow. Probably not Sunday either.”</p>
<p>There was a slight pause. “What happened, Alfie? You sound…”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“What’s—?”</p>
<p>“I told you I can’t explain right now. It’s fine. It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He scratched his thumbnail under his mouth and added, almost casually, “Just do me a favor, can you?”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Merv said, sounded no less worried. “Anything. What?”</p>
<p>“I was supposed to pick up Gene’s cat after work Sunday. If I haven’t gotten back to you before then, do you mind calling him Sunday afternoon? I can give you his number.”</p>
<p>“Of course, kiddo,” Merv said slowly. Both of them were well aware that Merv already had Gene’s number. And that Gene didn’t own a cat. “What’s his number?”</p>
<p>Malfoy rattled off Harry’s cell phone number, banking on the fact that McLaggen was too much of a Pureblood wizard to recognize the difference between an American and a UK phone number. “Got that?”</p>
<p>Merv repeated the number back. “And you want me to call… <em>Gene</em>… on Sunday afternoon? If I haven’t heard from you?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“What about <em>now</em>?” Merv asked, the cautious worry giving way to barely suppressed panic. “Is there someone there? Listening? Is everything—Do you need me to come over? I can be there in twenty. Or Tony. If you need three hundred pounds of pure rugged New England brawn for… for whatever’s… <em>God</em>, Alfie. What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“Nothing. No one. Please don’t come over.”</p>
<p>Malfoy fought back the stab of fear at the idea of what would happen if Tony or Merv burst in on McLaggen, ready to protect their Alfie from anyone in the world but an Auror trained to make sure that Muggles never found out about the goings-on of the wizarding world.</p>
<p>How much might McLaggen be capable of having someone forget?</p>
<p>“<em>Please</em>,” Malfoy said again before Merv could argue. “Please, just go to bed and promise you’ll call Gene on Sunday. Give me the number again, so I know you’ve got it right.”</p>
<p>Merv read it out again. “But, Alfie, I don’t understand what’s <em>happening</em>… You’re sure I shouldn’t call this number earlier than <em>Sunday</em>? Just to check in. About Gene’s cat. Just in case of… Just. For your sake.”</p>
<p>McLaggen was making a circular motion with one finger, telling Malfoy to wrap it up.</p>
<p>“No,” Draco said. “Everything’s okay. And I hope to be back in time to take care of the cat myself.” He swallowed. “Also. Thanks. For tonight, and for—for everything.”</p>
<p>“Of course, Alfie. I—”</p>
<p>“I’ve got to go, Merv. Talk to you soon.”</p>
<p>“Call me as soon as you can,” Merv said. “And tell us what’s the matter. <em>Please</em>. When you can. We can help if you need it. And… Take care of yourself.”</p>
<p>“I am. Don’t worry about me.”</p>
<p>Merv tried to laugh, but it came out brittle and short. “Fat chance of that, kiddo. You’re about to be <em>very worried about</em> until further notice.”</p>
<p>McLaggen took a step into the room.</p>
<p>“Bye, Merv.”</p>
<p>“Bye. Love ya, Alfie. So fucking much.”</p>
<p>“You too, Merv.”</p>
<p>Malfoy hung up. He thought his hands should be shaking for how he felt, but they remained steady.</p>
<p>He stood and turned to McLaggen. “All right. Just let me get on my coat and I’ll come. Full cooperation.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Back in London, late Friday morning, before Auror McLaggen took a Portkey to Maine, Auror Dubenich decided to have that conversation he’d been ordered to have with Terry Boot.</p>
<p>He knocked on the frame of the open door to their office.</p>
<p>Terry straightened up from the lower desk drawer they were rummaging around in. They had a half-finished Sobranie Black Russian between their lips, a thin curl of smoke weaving upward to the ceiling.</p>
<p>They didn’t put it out, but did the cursory courtesy of pretending to look sheepish for being caught smoking at their desk.</p>
<p>“I’ve been asked to speak to you,” Dubenich said, stepping inside.</p>
<p>“Ooh, two conversations in one week?” Terry propped their elbows up on their desk expectantly. “People <em>will</em> talk.”</p>
<p>Closing the door behind him, Dubenich came to stand in front of Terry’s desk. “It’s regarding that first conversation, as a matter of fact.”</p>
<p>“Figures.” Terry took the cigarette between their thumb and index finger and looked at it.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to put it out,” Dubenich told them.</p>
<p>Terry smiled a little. “Not going to write me up and court-martial me for smoking at me own desk? Ain’t you worried I’ll tattle to Abernathy that you’re not as much of a puritanical stickler as everyone says?”</p>
<p>Dubenich made the briefest face, just a half-second tic that was neither a sigh nor an eyeroll; Terry had learned <em>that</em> look early on in their months of close work together, and knew it meant mild annoyance, usually at Terry’s cheek. Mild annoyance, but not anger.</p>
<p>Terry figured Dubenich might have license to openly dislike them, for all the ways in which they couldn’t be more unlike each other, all of those differences exacerbated through months spent together in the same close room. But Dubenich didn’t dislike Terry, at least no more than Terry suspected he disliked some of his Auror colleagues, whom he was meant to respect more than Terry Boot.</p>
<p>Nobody was supposed to respect Terry Boot.</p>
<p>Terry looked up at him, standing straight and professional on the other side of their desk. “At ease, soldier,” they commented, waving their wand to slide the armchair at Harry’s desk over to face Terry’s own desk chair. “Have a seat for this chat. I ain’t in any real mood to watch you try to make your authority figure drag work on me.”</p>
<p>Dubenich hesitated slightly. “I outrank you. As far as you’re concerned, I <em>am</em> an authority figure.”</p>
<p>“C’mon, <em>please</em> sit down.” Terry sighed. “Rumor mill’s saying me officemate’s been suspended or sacked or put on notice, and you’re being sent to be eyes on me <em>twice</em> in a week, when they’d barely let us cross <em>paths</em> since the end of—you know. You know damn well I ain’t stupid enough not to know <em>something’s</em> happening, something I’m not high enough on the food chain to be told about.”</p>
<p>Dubenich made that face again, like a suppressed sigh, and sat down on the velvet armchair beside Terry, who swiveled their own seat to face him.</p>
<p>“There. This is nice. <em>This</em> is that friendly approachable face of the Department what they keep claiming we’ve going to pretend to have.” Terry set their lit cigarette on the edge of their tea saucer to dig a fresh one from the pack on their desk and light it between their lips before holding it out to Dubenich.</p>
<p>Dubenich paused only a second before accepting the offering. He took a long drag and the rigid perfect angles of his shoulders relaxed just a little.</p>
<p>“You claimed you were quitting,” Terry commented. “Back when we…” They picked their own black-and-gold cigarette up again and drew a line in the air, indicating that Dubenich needed to fill in the blank for them.</p>
<p>“That’s what I’m to speak to you about,” Dubenich said. “You should not have alluded to Project Lodestone in front of Auror Hammond on Monday.”</p>
<p>“And you shouldn’t’ve told on me to Abernathy for it,” Terry told him. “You know what they say about snitches where I’m from?”</p>
<p>“They get caught?”</p>
<p>“I’m—I’m sorry, was that a <em>pun</em>?” Terry feigned shock. “I didn’t know you had it in you.” They knocked a bit of loose ash into the empty wastepaper bin by their desk. “So, what, you’re supposed to come and wag an authoritative finger at me, give me a slap on me wrist and tell me that was very naughty of me and I oughtn’t mention it again? And I promise you I <em>won’t</em>, and that I <em>haven’t</em> been, except for what I said Monday—”</p>
<p>“<em>Have</em> you been?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “No, I ain’t said a thing to no one. I swear it. If you don’t believe me, feel free to go and requisition one of the Department’s Veritaserum doses.” They gave Dubenich a long unblinking stare.</p>
<p>“Don’t look at me like that,” Dubenich told them. “I had absolutely no involvement in <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>Terry nudged the wastepaper bin out from under their desk with the toe of one Doc Marten so Dubenich could reach it to use for ashes.</p>
<p>“I know,” Terry said. “Believe me, I remember enough about the experience.” They wished they were able to talk about what they went through after the war to prove their relative innocence. But Dubenich might be the only Auror—other than Harry—that they might <em>consider</em> wanting to tell.</p>
<p>Dubenich’s dark brows were furrowed; he seemed to be making a hard decision about how to respond to that. Finally, he said, “I will continue to keep my opinions to myself on the handling of that… assignment. I’m aware of whose it was.”</p>
<p>“So am I.” A smile twitched at the corner of Terry’s mouth. “<em>And</em> someone ought to tell you your opinions there ain’t all that unguessable, not when you say shite like, ‘I will continue to keep my opinions to myself.’ Everyone with half a brain knows nobody ever says that when they think <em>well</em> of a thing.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t trying to keep you from guessing anything. But that’s not—That’s not my place to talk about.”</p>
<p>“’Course not. It’s nobody’s place to talk about, except mine, and I can’t.” Terry shook their head at that, angry and disappointed. “Wish <em>someone</em> who knew would have the balls to just talk to me about it without it having to be in his <em>official line of duty</em>, without having to wait for Abernathy to give him <em>permission</em>. Just so it wouldn’t feel like I’m the only one what even remembers what happened.”</p>
<p>“You were never punished,” Dubenich pointed out, but even he looked doubtful at those words as he said them.</p>
<p>“Wasn’t I?”</p>
<p>“Not officially.” Dubenich grimaced a little and took a drag on his cigarette. “You know what I mean. You were questioned—”</p>
<p>“<em>Ha</em>.”</p>
<p>“—and as a result, you were never charged with any crime. There’s not a single official record from the war with your name on it.”</p>
<p>“Fuck <em>official</em>,” Terry said. “You <em>know</em> how folks keep score in their heads, and I’ve points against me in both directions, depending whose side they was on. And <em>nobody</em> needs nothing<em> official in print</em> to remember what they <em>think</em> they know.” They gave Dubenich a shrewd appraising look. “Of anyone, Durmstrang’s best and brightest must know a little of what that’s like. After all, you might be built to walk the straight and narrow better’n most, but <em>nobody</em> walks it as incredibly straight and narrow as <em>you</em> do unless they’ve something to prove. And what's it really gotten you, all this bowing and scraping and going along, all in the vain hope they <em>might</em> stop seeing you as the shifty Russian what knows too damned much about the Dark Arts to be trusted?”</p>
<p>Dubenich glared at them. “That’s how I <em>got</em> this job. And I’m Belarusian, not Russian.”</p>
<p>“One: Don’t matter if they <em>need</em> you; that don’t mean they’ve got to <em>accept</em> you. Look at <em>me</em>, Danila. Two: Do you think they give a fuck what the difference is? We conquered half the bloody planet so’s we’d never have to learn where anything is north of John o’ Groats or south of Land’s End.”</p>
<p>“But the rules count for <em>something</em>,” Dubenich said, pointedly choosing not to respond to that. “Everyone can’t just choose to take the law into their own hands. Not everyone should have the freedom to do whatever they think is right, because—” He stopped and glowered a bit at Terry. “You’ve done it again. You’ve derailed everything to what <em>you</em> want to talk about. You really must stop doing that to me.”</p>
<p>Terry smiled. “I’ll stop when it stops working. You’re six months out of practice, anyway; you used to be able to head me off before you got too close to admitting out loud you do things what don’t feel right to you.”</p>
<p>“I was not going to say that.”</p>
<p>“Oh, really? And what <em>was</em> it you were sent to talk to me about again?”</p>
<p>He looked pained at the snide note that crackled through Terry’s voice. “Terry. Please. Don’t make this harder.”</p>
<p>Terry narrowed their eyes. “Danila. Please. Don’t pretend you don’t deserve it.” They flicked the burnt-out end of their cigarette into the empty bin and settled back in their chair, pulling their feet up onto the seat and crossing their legs. “Fine. Let’s get this over with, so you can go back to your busy important day of pretending you never—had those eight months. Must be a real hardship for you, having to speak to me twice in a week, must make it real hard for you to pretend you never…” They trailed off, seeing all the ways they wanted to end that sentence, and knowing none of them were available. So instead, they lit another cigarette with a defiant flourish and looked at Dubenich, their eyes round and glittering like cut glass. “So. Tell me. What’s the Head Auror asking you to do here?”</p>
<p>Dubenich looked at Terry with those serious guarded eyes of his, aloof and imperious and so, so careful. “He wants me to be able to assure him everything is as it should be with you, regarding your role in Project Lodestone and its resulting constraints.”</p>
<p>“Are you going to tell me it was for my own good?”</p>
<p>“<em>What</em> was?” Dubenich asked. His gaze was hard, searching Terry’s face with purpose.</p>
<p>Terry understood what he was doing. <em>Oh, you bastard</em>.</p>
<p>“You know,” Terry said. They said it with a casual air, gesturing vaguely with their cigarette, making those two words mean nothing and almost anything.</p>
<p>“Tell me,” Dubenich said. “Tell me why we hired you and what happened when your work there was complete.”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head slowly. “I can’t.”</p>
<p>“I need to see you try.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Dubenich studied them. “I also know that it is not the most… unpleasant thing I’ve seen you endure.”</p>
<p><em>Not by a long shot</em>, neither of them said, but they both thought it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Not in the top fifty.</em>
</p>
<p>Both of them could remember moments far worse in their eight months working in close quarters in a room hidden deep in the DMLE complex, cloaked in enough security wards to make it almost impossible for anyone to accidentally find, no matter their access level.</p>
<p>Looking at Dubenich now, Terry remembered one of the times they had been shuddering and sobbing from how much it hurt, how much it hurt, and Dubenich had his hands on their shoulders, holding them down. And then took one hand off for a few seconds to brush their hair back from their eyes, their forehead sticky with sweat, as he whispered, <em>I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just a few more minutes, I’m sorry</em>.</p>
<p>“Are you asking me as a favor to you?” Terry asked. “Or is this an order?”</p>
<p>“If anything,” Dubenich told them, “it would be a favor to <em>you</em>. Head Auror Abernathy originally wanted to tell Auror Hammond to come get you to, ah, keep your mouth shut.” He winced a little at how awkward and clumsy that colloquialism sounded coming from his own mouth.</p>
<p>Terry thought of Harry telling Draco that if he didn’t cooperate now, someone else might come instead. They wondered whether the Aurors knew how limited their playbook really was.</p>
<p>“I told him I would take care of it,” Dubenich continued. “I felt I owed you that.”</p>
<p>“Am I supposed to be grateful?” Terry asked. “As if I had any…” They swallowed back a cough. “I didn’t want to work here,” they amended.</p>
<p>Dubenich watched that and nodded slowly. “Good,” he said. “There’s a start. Now try to tell me about the months in Lodestone, so I can be sure.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> tell <em>me</em> about the months in… in there.”</p>
<p>He hesitated. “I feel that would be counterproductive,” he told Terry. “We both know; you don’t need <em>me</em> to prove I was there. I need <em>you</em> to prove you’re not going to say anything.”</p>
<p>“That I’m not able to, you mean.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“I don’t need you to prove you remember,” Terry told him. “I just… It’s like what I said, about after the war, how it’d be nice to hear someone else talk about things <em>for</em> me that I can’t, ‘cause <em>I am so bleedin’ tired</em> of feeling like I’m the only one what’s got to carry all this around every single day, when the rest of you have it slide off like water off a duck, and just waltz about getting your commendations and your public approval, happy and unbothered and never losing a second’s sleep over it.”</p>
<p>“Of course I lose sleep,” Dubenich snapped defensively. Then he blinked, hearing his own words a moment too late to take them back.</p>
<p>“Glad to hear it,” Terry said. “Over what?”</p>
<p>“That’s what I was meant to come here and ask you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you lose sleep over <em>that</em>, do you?” Terry asked, a bite in their voice. “How comforting. Anyway, as I see it, only difference is, you’re not supposed to want to get an answer out of me. But I really, really want an answer from <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I’m here for,” Dubenich told them, words clipped short. He knocked ash into the bin and took one final long drag on the cigarette before dropping the gold foil stub in after the ashes. “But. I suppose… I suppose it’s permissible to tell the other participant things they already know. What is it you want to hear? That we figured out how to isolate the homing enchantments in the Dark Mark, that we were able to use that to find a way to locate any… any individual who bears the Mark, wherever in the world they are? Do you want to hear again how important that work was? How well you served your government?” He paused. His solemn expression slipped for a moment to reveal something just under the surface—Not quite apprehension, not quite guilt, but something just a little hesitant and sorry all the same. “Or do you want an apology from me for the Vow of Secrecy afterwards?”</p>
<p>“<em>Are</em> you sorry?” Terry asked.</p>
<p>“I was ordered to do it. You’re not an Auror, and the work we did was deemed too sensitive to risk any information getting out to the general public.”</p>
<p>“But are you <em>sorry</em>?” Terry asked again.</p>
<p>“It was clean,” Dubenich said. “I did it very carefully. I made sure it only covered the things that I was told to include.”</p>
<p>“And you didn’t question how <em>many</em> things that was.”</p>
<p>“One project. That’s all that it covers. I was exhaustive in making sure the edges didn’t bleed over to anything they shouldn’t. I was exhaustive in making sure it was done <em>right</em>,” Dubenich said. “It wasn’t my decision that it should be done at all.” He looked at the edge of Terry’s desk; he couldn’t look them in the eye as they said the next part; he didn’t have the cruelty or courage for that. “I understood their reasoning. I sympathized with their concerns. I agreed that it was the most failsafe option when I was told to do it. Because it is.”</p>
<p>“Do <em>you</em> not trust me?”</p>
<p>“You can’t ask the entire Auror Department—the entire Ministry of Magic—to just agree to trust a civilian with an <em>incredibly</em> checkered history, simply because one Auror <em>might</em> consider taking that chance himself, were it left up to him.” Dubenich sighed. “Which is, of course, why this sort of thing shouldn’t be left up to just <em>one person</em> to decide, without the influence of law, or authority, or—”</p>
<p>“You don’t need to make a show of licking Abernathy’s boots in front of <em>me</em>,” Terry cut in. “He ain’t here to have his ego flattered by it, and I ain’t the audience for that cant.”</p>
<p>“It happened,” Dubenich retorted. “Whatever you feel about it, it happened. It was done and Head Auror Abernathy wants to ensure it’s still in effect as it should be. So tell me: What was Project Lodestone?”</p>
<p>Terry glared at him. <em>What</em>, they wanted to quip bitterly, <em>don’t you trust your own handiwork?</em> But that might be too close to the line. If they managed to say that, Dubenich might raise concerns.</p>
<p>“Proj…” Terry stopped. <em>Project Lodestone</em> was still off limits. As they both already knew. “I was hired to—I was hired for—I was hired because—I was—They wanted me for—” With each false start, they coughed more, little gagging gasping coughs that hitched between words. “They made me—They made me. They <em>made</em> me. <em>They made me</em>.” Terry covered their mouth, eyes wide, as a wet strangled sound rasped in their throat. They drew their hand away and dragged the back of it over their mouth. They looked down at the smear of spit over their skin, turning their wrist a little back and forth to study the odd gray sheen in it, and turned their eyes back to Dubenich. Their gaze burned hard. “Good enough for you?”</p>
<p>Dubenich nodded.</p>
<p>Terry wiped their hand off on the opposite sleeve of their Department robes. “You gonna make another complaint about me to Abernathy if I tell you to go fuck yourself now?” they asked, with a short laugh, sharp and hoarse.</p>
<p>Dubenich shook his head seriously, as if that had been a sincere question. “I only mentioned the conversation from Monday because I thought it was pertinent to the Department’s interest that a participant in a classified project might—”</p>
<p>“Have more free will than is convenient?”</p>
<p>“That is <em>absolutely</em> not what I was going to say.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> of all Aurors—except maybe Harry—you of <em>anyone</em> should be able to make the call by now on whether or not you can trust me. Without having to run to your boss to think <em>for</em> you and tell you whether or not you’re allowed to make that call.”</p>
<p>“<em>I am doing my job</em>,” Dubenich said. “Certain decisions are not mine to make, nor are they yours.”</p>
<p>“No <em>shite</em>,” Terry said. “‘A participant in a classified project.’ <em>Ha</em>.” They paused for a moment, gathering their next words carefully, to skirt as close as they could to what they dearly wished they could say. “From what I know of Muggle laboratories, the scientists what work there rarely think of the rats as research partners.”</p>
<p>“You contributed your own research as well,” Dubenich informed them, feeling his usual stoicism start to crack. “You were brilliant. You—”</p>
<p>“Stop,” Terry said. “Stop. I can’t—I <em>can’t</em> argue back, and you <em>know</em> it. But the things I’d say to you now if I could…” They took a deep breath. “Was it worth it?”</p>
<p>“Are you asking if the results of our work were worth”—Dubenich’s voice faltered so slightly it would take someone like Terry Boot to catch—“what I put you through to get those results?”</p>
<p>Terry nodded. “That’s about the sum of what I’m asking, yeah.”</p>
<p>“We’ve located Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>The surprise on Terry’s face was genuine at that. Not because they didn’t already know that, of course, but because they hadn’t expected Dubenich to just <em>tell</em> them outright. “Oh?” they asked. “And he’s grown up to be a big threat, has he? Because if so, I gotta admit, that’s a real surprise. Considering how even back in his full-fledged Death Eater days, he was never more than a wormy little scared brat. I find it pretty fucking hard to believe that <em>Draco Malfoy</em> would be worth—”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t for him,” Dubenich broke in. “He was the best case on which to validate our methods, because we didn’t already have a known location for him. He was the missing one. He was the best possible test run scenario because of that.”</p>
<p>Terry felt themself want to ball their hands into fists, to dig their nails into their palms, to just about scream with frustration and powerlessness. “What I said about lab rats, that fucking stands here too, for him. You ain’t a willing participant if you ain’t got no say in how you’re used.”</p>
<p>“He’s not a <em>participant</em>, he’s a <em>Death Eater</em>.”</p>
<p>“Right. Of course. Totally different then.”</p>
<p>“He’s not an employee of the DMLE, for one thing.”</p>
<p>“Lucky him.” Terry put their cigarette between their lips and gave Dubenich a particularly sour wounded look that Dubenich had not missed in the months since Lodestone ended. Dubenich had never liked getting that look from Terry. He always felt it was the expression of an animal that wanted to bite but knew it would get beaten for it. Worse, he always felt a little like he’d earned it. “How much longer am I going to be stuck in this gig for your lot’s assurance you’ve got me on as short a leash as you <em>know</em> you’ve got?”</p>
<p>“This is employment, not a prison sentence. From what I’ve gathered, you would be hard pressed to find another honest job with a decent salary elsewhere. Or would you prefer going back to—?”</p>
<p>“Don’t pull that on me. That’s a Hammond line; don’t debase yourself by stooping to his level,” Terry said. “You’re better than that.” They tilted their head to the side, sizing them up. They rested the fingers of one hand under their chin in a manner that might have looked casually thoughtful, were it not for the steel in their slightly narrowed eyes. “I didn’t <em>want</em> to be stuck in this sinecure after they’d run out of use for me. I didn’t <em>ask</em> for that. And you should know better’n most: If they want to keep an eye on me, they don’t have to keep me on a bloody paycheck to do it. It’s not as if you don’t have a way to find me now.”</p>
<p>Dubenich stood. His jaw was tense and every single line of his body was drawn razor-straight and taut as wire. “You’re lucky it’s me you’re speaking to,” he said, each word slow and measured. “I would not advise saying that to anyone else here. I would not advise you try <em>any</em> of this with another Auror. You <em>do not</em> have the authority to go against one of us, and you’re lucky that I would not make you try.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, is that a threat?”</p>
<p>“It’s a <em>fact</em>, Terry, and you know it. You crossed more lines in this conversation than anyone <em>else</em> would forgive, and as the ranking Auror in witness of that, I ought to file a report. I ought to inform Head Auror Abernathy that his concerns about you are not unfounded. I ought to have you over for insubordination, if not dissent. But I won’t. Not this time. But be very careful from here out, because I can’t promise you’ll always be as safe to mouth off to an Auror like that. Especially if it isn’t me.”</p>
<p>Terry glared up at him from their chair. They refused to do him the respect of standing. “You’re right,” they agreed, their voice as hard and cold as Knockturn cobblestones. “You <em>do</em> outrank me. But this ain’t <em>your</em> office, is it? It’s still <em>mine</em>, for what that’s worth. So get out.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Dance Band on the Titanic" by Harry Chapin.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Sixteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Two can be as bad as one</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On Friday morning, Harry got up early and went for a long run before getting his flat ready for the weekend with the kids. He made up the bunk beds in the second bedroom with fresh bedsheets—dinosaurs for James, parrots for Albus—and the crib in his own bedroom with a fitted sheet of pink gingham flannel for Lily. He checked that he had a full gallon of milk in the fridge, plenty of carrot sticks, cheese sandwich makings, and an unopened new package of chocolate Hobnobs. He moved Neville’s Christmas houseplant to the top of the refrigerator, well out of range of curious reaching hands, and made sure that everyone’s books and toys were still where they should be.</p>
<p>The night before, Thursday, he’d made the awkward phone call to Ginny to let her know that he would be free all day for her to bring Albus and Lily over, and he could pick James up from school. He figured there was nothing to be done for it: At this rate, she was sure to find out eventually what happened at work, so it was better she hear it from him now.</p>
<p>“Oh,” she had said. “<em>Oh</em>. I had <em>wondered</em>.”</p>
<p>“You had?” he had replied.</p>
<p>“Yes. Can’t say I’m surprised.”</p>
<p>“That I lost my temper when I shouldn’t, or that I disobeyed the Aurors?”</p>
<p>“Both, I suppose,” she’d admitted. “Harry, I’m not <em>mad</em>, not exactly. Well, maybe a <em>little</em> that you didn’t tell me when we saw each other Tuesday, but… But we’re still getting used to how all this works, now that neither of us is obligated to share everything with the other.”</p>
<p>“Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. We’ll get the hang of it, eventually. Probably.”</p>
<p>“I miss telling you things,” Harry admitted.</p>
<p>“I miss telling you things too. James isn’t much of a sounding board for Holyhead contract negotiations.”</p>
<p>“Really? Because Lily’s got some real nuanced opinions on the Auror Department.”</p>
<p>“At <em>least</em> as nuanced and well thought out as some of the actual Aurors anyway,” Ginny replied, the wry note in her voice sparking with that fiery side of her that Harry missed maybe more than anything else.</p>
<p>“What a high opinion of my coworkers.”</p>
<p>“Am I wrong?”</p>
<p>“No,” he admitted. “You’re not. And you’re really okay with this? Because I’d probably be pretty bloody angry at me, if I were you.”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure <em>okay</em> is the word I’d use, Harry, but… I don’t know, I want you to resolve this all one way or another, of course, but I remember Ron. I remember <em>why</em> he walked out and how furious he was, so I can’t really pretend they don’t deserve some pushing back. That’s why I’m not mad at <em>you</em>. Because of Ron, because of all that. Because I’m not inclined to forgive them yet, not when things are probably the same <em>now</em> as they were <em>then</em>.”</p>
<p>They talked a few minutes more, and Harry asked her not to mention it to her parents, not until he had a better idea of what was going to happen next.</p>
<p>Which still loomed like a giant question mark over his whole life.</p>
<p>He’d had an owl from Terry about an hour before he called Ginny, sent after they got home from their Thursday workday, but all it said was:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Harry Luv,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>All quiet on the Western Front at work re: our dear expatriate Slytherin. Can’t dig too deep but if there was buzz in the Dept about D.M., it’d be too loud for me to miss. Plus Mag Trans says nobody’s come to ask for an internatl Portkey or anythin like that so we ain’t sent anyone out for him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Looks like we just sit tight and keep waiting. Stiff upper lip and all that.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I am, etc. TB</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He couldn’t quite decide whether it was a good sign or a bad sign that there were no new developments. He couldn’t say he was sorry not to have been called back into work, but he wished that he had something tangible to <em>do</em>.</p>
<p>He had never been comfortable just sitting and waiting, and planning ahead had never been his strongest suit. He would really rather it if whatever was coming would just <em>happen</em>, so he could <em>act</em>.</p>
<p>So instead he threw his energy on Friday morning into making his home as nice as possible for his children, but even that didn’t take up as much time as he hoped.</p>
<p>It was noon now. <em>Seven in the morning in Maine</em>, Harry’s brain supplied helpfully, the way it had taken to doing without his permission whenever he happened to notice the time.</p>
<p>Malfoy might just be getting to work at The Fisherman’s Breakfast, wearing jeans and a cable-knit jumper—or the fitted blue v-neck one that he’d worn the morning Harry left, which Harry had thought about more than once over the past few days. Maybe well over <em>more than once</em>, if he was being entirely honest with himself.</p>
<p>Ginny would be bringing Albus and Lily over any minute now.</p>
<p>He surveyed the flat and decided it was good enough.</p>
<p>Although for longer than a couple days, he knew it would start to get too crowded for four people. It wouldn’t suit for long once Holyhead’s pre-season training started in a month. Then he would have the kids with him most of the time through the end of the Quidditch season.</p>
<p>He should probably find a bigger place now, he thought, sooner rather than later. A proper house, maybe. At the very least, somewhere where the kids could have their own rooms.</p>
<p>Grimmauld Place would probably be his again soon enough, after Ginny bought the farmhouse.</p>
<p>The prospect was not encouraging.</p>
<p>That afternoon, he bundled Albus and Lily up for the winter weather after their naps and took them to meet James after school, bought them toffee peanuts on the walk home by one of the garden squares, and let them run about in the grass, Albus and James making up a game that seemed to involve pirates and birds (Albus) and snakes with lasers (James) while Lily toddled around Harry, bringing him small stones and fallen twigs for his admiration.</p>
<p>He made toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner and they watched <em>The Black Cauldron</em> on video all nestled close on the couch afterwards.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a very <em>good</em> movie, he decided afterwards, but it was one of the few he could remember from his own childhood.</p>
<p>Aunt Petunia had refused to let Dudley watch it, saying simply, <em>No. I don’t want things </em>like that<em> in this house.</em></p>
<p>So Dudley had thrown a fit until she gave in, and he watched it <em>ad nauseam</em> for a week in sheer spiteful victory, despite the fact that he found it boring and babyish compared to the bigger, more violent fare he was already allowed.</p>
<p>On Saturday morning, they went to the Weasleys’ shop, where Albus barreled straight into George’s arms and James took a keen interest in the fireworks display.</p>
<p>Ron leaned on the counter and angled his head towards him. “Careful there,” he warned, grinning. “The twins started their lifelong love affair with blowing things up at about that age. And look at what became of George, bloody useless brother that makes me do all the finances.”</p>
<p>Laughing, George tossed a plush Puffskein at Ron’s head, using his one free hand. Albus was still held in George’s other arm, his small arms wrapped around George’s neck. Harry suspected that one of the strongest points George had in his favor with Albus was that he was still willing to carry a three-year-old around like it was nothing. “Enjoying fireworks didn’t make me shit at maths, you git,” George told Ron. “<em>Boredom</em> made me shit at <em>bookkeeping</em>. There’s a difference.” He turned to look at Albus. “Now, that’s another of those bad words that only grown-ups are allowed to use.”</p>
<p>“Shit?” Albus asked, loud and cheerful.</p>
<p>Ron choked back a laughing fit at that.</p>
<p>“No, <em>bookkeeping</em>,” George said.</p>
<p>Harry was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Lily, helping her stack the wooden blocks that George kept behind the counter for her. He looked up at the two of them. “Y’know, I’m so <em>so</em> glad Ginny’s your sister, ‘cause it makes me feel much less responsible for the terrible influences you are on my kids.”</p>
<p>“Just living up to expectations,” George told him happily. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint.”</p>
<p>James and Albus begged to invite Ron and George over to Harry’s for dinner, but Ron said he had a Bolognese in the slow cooker and friends coming over to theirs.</p>
<p>“I can’t close the shop until after dinnertime,” George told them, “but how about I try and Apparate over for a little bit before you go to sleep?”</p>
<p>“Don’t bring them candy this time,” Harry whispered to him. “Or I’m gonna make <em>you</em> responsible for getting three kids on an evening sugar high to go to bed.”</p>
<p>By the time Harry got them all back home, it was pretty easy to convince him to get takeaway for dinner from the kebab place down the road.</p>
<p>“There’s no takeaway by the new house,” James said around a mouthful of chicken.</p>
<p>“Well, no, maybe not,” Harry allowed. “But there are a lot of great things <em>there</em> that I don’t have <em>here</em>.”</p>
<p>James thought about it. “I like the field there,” he decided. “I can fly a broom in the field. When I’m allowed.” Hope sparked in his eyes. “Hey, Dad? <em>Am</em> I allowed?”</p>
<p>“Nope. Nice try. Sorry, sport, not ‘til you’re older.”</p>
<p>George came by sometime later in the evening with a six-pack of Guinness. He cheerfully helped Harry get the kids ready for bed, and told James and Albus a long bedtime story that Harry loosely recognized as a version of Cinderella, with a lot more dragons, a second mysterious rival prince, and a climactic dance battle.</p>
<p>After they were asleep, he uncapped two bottles of beer and handed one to Harry.</p>
<p>“So what’s it going to be then?” he asked.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” Harry said.</p>
<p>“I mean, what comes next?” George leaned back against the counter of Harry’s narrow little kitchen and regarded him with a brotherly fondness. “I know, I know. I’m not supposed to badger you, and Merlin knows I’m not the one in the family who’s got a leg to stand on if I want to pretend to lecture someone on adulthood and responsibility—”</p>
<p>“Hang on, do you think I’m being irresponsible?”</p>
<p>“No, blimey, <em>that’s</em> not what I was getting at,” George said. “Just giving the usual disclaimer how I’m not one to judge or give self-important advice on what someone <em>ought to do</em>”—he drew the words out in a pompous tone that might have been meant to sound like Percy—“seeing as how I’m the designated low expectations sibling in the family.”</p>
<p>Harry took a sip of his Guinness and settled against the refrigerator door across from George with a slight frown. “I don’t think that’s true. Ron always looked up to both of you so much, back in school.”</p>
<p>“’Course he did, bless him.” George beamed. “But from where our parents stood, you had Bill and Charlie, who were always doing something impressive to brag about, and then came Percy—prickly standoffish Percy, gods love ‘im—who halfway made up for how standoffish he was by being a <em>bright young man with a bright future</em>, et cetera, et cetera. For a little while, anyway, until the first part outweighed the second too hard for them. And Ron and Gin, the babies, all bright and shiny and full of promise.” He chuckled and took a long drink from his bottle. “But us? We were just the discipline cases stuck in the middle, never taking things serious enough for their liking. Mum always sort of figured if we stayed out of jail and managed to graduate and hold down literally <em>any</em> job, they could chalk it up as a win. That’s it, <em>that’s</em> where the bar was set. The shop is leagues beyond what anyone ever expected of us.” He grinned, a smile laden with irony and self-deprecation. “But then when Ron takes the vacancy left and does the same as we did, he’s ‘squandering his potential,’ of course.”</p>
<p>“<em>He</em> doesn’t think so. Neither do I. Or Hermione, for that matter.” He picked at the edge of the label on his bottle. “So, are you asking me to, what, not squander my <em>own</em> potential? Whatever the hell that even means.”</p>
<p>George made a face. “Never. I’d rather volunteer to be Filch’s personal masseuse than be the sort of person who says a thing like <em>that</em> to someone I care about,” he said. “I was just wondering… Well, Ron’s half-convinced this is you about to realize you’re well past the point when you should have quit. <em>I’m</em> not telling you to do that, <em>you</em> do what you like with yourself and we’ll be here for you either way, but. <em>But</em>. But it’s left me to wonder: What would make you <em>happy</em>?”</p>
<p>“Being an Auror doesn’t make me happy?” Harry asked, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm in the pseudo-sincerity he pretended to ask with.</p>
<p>“Oh, for sure, you seem over the moon about it. Silly me.”</p>
<p>Harry sighed. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation in the last week, you know. It’s more like… the fifth, I think?”</p>
<p>“Figured,” George said. “But I thought I owed it to Ron to give it a go too, just for how much I’ve listened to him worry about you for the past four days. Reckoned there was a chance you did that thing with him, where you’re his best mate and <em>Harry Potter</em> to boot, and don’t want to feel like you’re letting him down by not having a bloody clue what you’re doing. But me? Sure, I know you’re Harry Potter and all that, but first, before that, you get to be my little dork brother’s little dork friend. You’re not going to disillusion <em>me</em> about you—I remember when your clothes were three sizes too big and your shoelaces always coming untied.”</p>
<p>Harry laughed. “Gee, thanks a lot,” he said, but meant it. He picked off a little more of his beer label in little shreds with his short-bitten nails and dropped them in a tiny-but-growing pile on the counter beside him. “I dunno. I keep pointing out to everyone that I haven’t <em>quit</em> my job, but everyone seems to act like they think that’s coming. Even <em>Oliver</em> came out of the woodwork to suggest I could still play Quidditch if I wanted.”</p>
<p>George raised his eyebrows at that. “Do you <em>want</em> to play Quidditch?”</p>
<p>“No. I mean. Yeah, sure, recreationally, with you and Ron and Charlie and Gin at the Burrow on Christmas afternoon. To unwind and goof off without any stakes. But not as a <em>job</em>.” Harry thought for a minute. “This was the only other thing I was ever really <em>good</em> at in school, though. Defense Against the Dark Arts and fighting dark wizards and all that.”</p>
<p>“But did you <em>enjoy</em> that?”</p>
<p>“I dunno,” Harry said. “I didn’t enjoy the parts where people were trying to <em>kill</em> me, I reckon. But I liked the class, in the few years we had decent teachers, anyway. And Dumbledore’s Army. I loved the days there when it was just all of us learning how to <em>do</em> something—Like, I think about that one meeting, where I taught everyone to cast a Patronus? I think about it a lot.” He sighed. “But that’s not what being an Auror is like.”</p>
<p>George looked uncharacteristically thoughtful at that, and seemed to be trying to find a proper response, but was interrupted by a soft tapping at the sitting room window.</p>
<p>“Hang on,” Harry said, setting his Guinness down on the counter to go open the window for the owl waiting outside.</p>
<p>It wasn’t one of the bedraggled courier service owls that Terry had used the last couple times. It was, instead, the stately barn owl that Harry recognized as having delivered Terry a note from their secret lover.</p>
<p>The owl held out its leg to allow Harry to take the attached note and flew off before Harry could ask if it expected a reply.</p>
<p>“Guess not, then,” he said to himself, unfolding the piece of paper:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Harry Luv,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sorry, meant to drop a line earlier. Still can’t learn nothing for you about what’s what, despite me best efforts. But suspect I’m being more than a lil straitjacketed by the Auror Dept, based on a chat I had to sit through yesterday. Nothing to do with the Draco business, but might make the job harder for me. We’ll see. Sorry again for not sending a note till now but I’ve been a bit tied up.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Fanx mate, TB</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was a little winking grin drawn next to the last sentence, in case its insinuation was lost on Harry.</p>
<p>George had sidled over to Harry and glanced at the note over his shoulder. “Terry Boot?” he guessed.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Ron told me they were involved in all this.” George smiled. “Fred was always kinda fond of that kid. He said they were scrappy.”</p>
<p>“They still are,” Harry told him.</p>
<p>“Good,” George said. “You need people like that in your corner, especially now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Percy watched Terry draw the cheeky winking face on their note before folding it up to send off to Harry.</p>
<p>“Is that <em>really</em> necessary?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Yep, pretty sure it is,” Terry replied, handing Percy the slip of folded paper to give his owl before settling back into the soft white duvet they’d nested themself into in the middle of Percy’s large bed.</p>
<p>They watched Percy cross the bedroom with a sleepy sort of appreciation, still feeling a little blissed out and blurry around the edges. But their mind was back enough to scrawl Harry a note on the pad of paper kept on the nightstand, and then to focus entirely on the shape of the man leaving the room, clad only in his horn-and-gold-rimmed glasses and dark green boxer briefs, all those long long freckled limbs, so neatly lanky, so seductively dignified, and with <em>such</em> a nice arse.</p>
<p>Nobody had warned Terry that Percival Ignatius Weasley—<em>of all people</em>—had such a <em>goddamned</em> nice arse.</p>
<p>Nobody had warned Terry about Percy Weasley, <em>period</em>. They hadn’t been ready for someone who would give the same single-minded dedication to studying the things Terry introduced him to that he had probably given to studying for his N.E.W.T.s back in school. Who would find ways to give Terry what they wanted in ways Terry had never dared hope for from anyone else. Who would let himself seem like a safe place to turn after what happened Friday, who would help them stop <em>thinking</em>, if only just for a couple hours.</p>
<p>At least, Terry thought it might have been a couple hours. It had felt like years, maybe, as time disappeared and faded away, as everything else in the world faded away, leaving only Percy—Percy’s careful certain hands tying careful certain knots in that beautiful red rope, Percy’s voice giving the orders Terry wanted to get, saying the things Terry wanted to hear, his hands and mouth and body, bringing them just nearly to the edge, then stopping, pulling back, starting over, doing it again.</p>
<p>Terry wasn’t sure how many times.</p>
<p>It felt like a hundred.</p>
<p>It felt like they would have willingly taken it a hundred more, begging for him to stop in the way that meant they were begging him to go on.</p>
<p>And then, finally, finally, Percy took them in hard rough thrusts, telling them they better not come without his permission. Until Terry did, gasping and grateful and close to crying, safe in Percy’s bed, Percy’s arms, Percy’s care.</p>
<p>After he’d sent off his owl with Terry’s message, Percy came back and climbed onto the bed beside his—</p>
<p>Whatever Terry was to him.</p>
<p>Terry wouldn’t push for <em>partner</em> and all its implied seriousness. They would accept <em>lover</em>, if a word was really needed to describe who they were to Percy, but even that concession seemed tentative and not quite true for the precarious thing between the two of them.</p>
<p>Percy wasn’t comfortable when he didn’t have concrete definitions for things. He liked to be able to line up the important things in his life and know exactly what they were and how to define them, everything tidy and just so, everything proper and known and in its place.</p>
<p>And yet, he’d given up control of that to keep hold of the person in his bed, as much as any human on the planet could pretend to be able to keep hold of Terry Boot.</p>
<p>Terry was still partly cocooned in the duvet, like a cloud draped over their shoulders. Underneath, they wore some of the pretty underthings Percy had given them, all sheer gauze and lace trim in shades of apple green, with satin ribbons undone against their pale skin. Over that, they had shrugged on that frayed purple cardigan of theirs, but just halfway, their left arm slipped into the oversized sleeve, thumb hooked through the hole in the cuff.</p>
<p>Percy wanted to tell them they didn’t have to do that, but the last time he had tried, it had come out sounding too pitying. Terry had bristled at what they heard as patronizing, like they were just a charity case to be used for Percy to perform self-satisfied compassion on.</p>
<p>The two had fought, and Percy had chosen not to mention it since.</p>
<p>“I haven’t heard anything at work that you may be able to make use of,” he said instead. It wasn’t a very romantic thing to say to someone after a long lovemaking, but he hoped Terry knew how awkward and ill-suited he felt whenever he tried to say anything too sentimental, like he was reading someone else’s maudlin poetry, and poorly. “I’ve been keeping an ear out for you, but there hasn’t been anything of note in my department that you wouldn’t have been privy to yourself in the usual paperwork and request forms.”</p>
<p>There had once been a time when he would have found it unimaginable to pass information he learned as a Department Head onto someone with whom he was having… Well. He <em>also</em> would have found it unimaginable that someone could smile and wink and convince him there was no harm in sneaking off into an unused supply closet in the middle of a workday.</p>
<p>Weekly.</p>
<p><em>Downfall</em>. That may be the word for what Terry was to Percy.</p>
<p>“’S all right,” Terry told him, gently pulling Percy’s arms to encircle them again.</p>
<p>They were still a little in that place they often were, <em>after</em>, where they were soft and dreamy and tender, and something in need of such care and protection.</p>
<p>In that place, when Percy ministered their needs and kept them safe and warm and held, he sometimes found the feeling in him glow dangerously close to <em>love</em>.</p>
<p>“How are you doing?” he asked, drawing himself close around them and propping his chin against their shoulder.</p>
<p>They laughed a gentle breathy laugh. “Bloody hell,” they murmured, turning their head to brush their cheek against his for a moment. “I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“Is that all right? Do you want me to get you—?”</p>
<p>“No, no, that’s <em>more</em> than all right. That’s bloody <em>marvelous</em>. That’s—That’s everything I wanted tonight.” They took one of Percy’s hands and kissed its palm and each fingertip, one by one. “Thank you for that.”</p>
<p>“Of course, lovely. I’m glad I could give you what you needed from me, especially after—”</p>
<p>Terry could hear the subtle uptick of a question in Percy’s voice and cut him off with, “No. Nice try, but I still don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>Percy hadn’t been able to gather what was wrong from the bits of hints he could read in what little Terry said earlier that evening, just that something had happened to them at work the day before—Friday—that had left them angry and shaken.</p>
<p>And with a strong need to surrender control to someone they could trust to take it.</p>
<p>“You said it had nothing to do with Harry and the Malfoy business,” Percy pressed.</p>
<p>“What did I just tell you.”</p>
<p>“That you don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>“Exactly.” Terry sighed and Percy wrapped his arms closer around them. “I’ll give you this much: It ain’t got anything to do with no one but <em>me</em>, so I can promise you Harry’s in no danger—or no more than he’s already put himself in on his own—and it sure as <em>hell</em> has nothing to do with what I’ve been sneaking off to do with you, so <em>you’re</em> still safe as houses.”</p>
<p>“What about you though? I notice there’s no particular promise of <em>your</em> safety in what you just said.”</p>
<p>“Me? I’ll be fine. Dealt with worse. Don’t worry yourself about <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>They were putting on their stubbornly invulnerable face again, which was something that Percy found endearing and infuriating in equal measure, depending on the day.</p>
<p>“I don’t worry about you,” he lied.</p>
<p>“Good. Ain’t your job to worry about me, and ain’t <em>mine</em> to coddle anyone’s worries. Which you shouldn’t even be having in the first place, I might add.”</p>
<p>Percy shot them a look. “You must realize, saying things like that makes it <em>very</em> hard to not ask what happened yesterday,” he said. He took Terry’s right hand and raised it to kiss around the pink marks that encircled their wrist, still fresh from the evening’s activities, but already fading. “I <em>do</em> care about you, you know.” He then took Terry’s left hand, and gently slid their thumb back through the hole in the cuff to push it up their arm, just high enough to kiss around the rope marks there as well. “More than I care to admit, and more than I ever expected to when we first began all this.”</p>
<p>Percy could tell from Terry’s face that wasn’t what he should have said. A hurt passed through their eyes, brief and unguarded, before they looked away.</p>
<p>“No,” they agreed. “No, it must have been quite a shock for you.”</p>
<p>They looked ahead, at the bedroom spread out before them. It was clean and impeccable, with tastefully modern furniture and minimalist sensibility. Percy’s whole flat was like that, on the fourth floor of a trendy renovated warehouse building in Soho. All of the books were shelved alphabetically on a row of matching bookcases; the kitchen counters were granite and the appliances brushed steel; the fireplace was big and sleek and allowed on the Floo Network.</p>
<p>It was everything Terry’s one room in Knockturn Alley wasn’t.</p>
<p>They had never invited Percy there.</p>
<p>They could only imagine the look on his face if he went down that hall, saw that room, was reminded so fully and completely how not good enough for him Terry was.</p>
<p>He didn’t need to be shown in such concrete reality the fact that he was a Ministry official, a Department Head, former Head Boy of Hogwarts, respectable and established and worthy, while Terry was a creature of the gutter, something that had never risen above their grubby grasping Knockturn Alley rooms, someone whose bed once hosted strangers who paid to be there.</p>
<p>Terry didn’t need to add more evidence to the already far-too-long list of reasons why this thing between them was doomed to end. Every single one of those things was destined to come crashing in uninvited someday; Terry didn’t need to hold open the door and ask them in.</p>
<p>Percy was frowning at them. Terry imagined it must have been the same look he got on his face back in school, when he got less than a perfect score on an exam and couldn’t figure out where he could have made a mistake.</p>
<p>“Should I not have said that?” he asked. “Maybe that was too… intimate. Too frank.” He pulled back to lie on the bed beside Terry, his usually tidy thick red hair still tousled and haloed around him against the bright white of the pillow. “I didn’t mean to imply… Oh, Merlin, you know I’m utter bollocks at this sort of thing, lovely. I didn’t mean to imply more than there is. Here, between us, with whatever we have here, I mean.” He sighed out in a long defeated puff of air. He hated the way this could reduce him to feeling stupid and inarticulate. He hated being in uncharted waters with no knowledge of how to travel them, yet wanting to push farther and farther out, where the sea was deep and frightening and the familiar shore of being practical and unentangled grew more distant every day. “I’m not trying to press you into any sort of commitment. You know I don’t want to ask you to do that. Don’t worry, I… I was merely trying to tell you how I feel.”</p>
<p>Terry wrapped their own arms around themself. They didn’t like how alone they felt suddenly, without Percy holding them anymore. They had never needed to be <em>held</em> before.</p>
<p>They had never <em>asked</em> to be held before.</p>
<p>Nobody had ever <em>wanted</em> to before.</p>
<p>They found in themself a light careless laugh they could give him, teasing and reassuring. “Don’t worry yourself about it, guv,” they said, tossing him a smile, cheeky and blithe. “I knew you wasn’t suggesting nothing. Don’t you worry, I ain’t holding out for your class ring and a steady date, so you can rest easy that you don’t owe me nothing more than I’ve asked for.”</p>
<p>They didn’t say: <em>But if you offered, I’d take it.</em></p>
<p>They didn’t say: <em>But I understand it’s too much for me to want.</em></p>
<p>They didn’t say: <em>But I wasn’t hurt to hear you care about me. I was only hurt to hear it surprised you that it was possible.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Earlier on Saturday, elsewhere in London, in the wee early hours of the morning before the sun had even begun to think of rising, a Portkey delivered two travelers to a side room of the inprocessing area in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.</p>
<p>McLaggen lost his footing for only a moment, thrown off-kilter by the sheer international distance they had just been pulled.</p>
<p>Malfoy dropped through the Portkey straight to his hands and knees and was violently sick on the tile floor.</p>
<p>As he felt himself shudder and retch at the dizzying force that had just been applied to him, part of his mind found the bleak gallows humor to think, <em>I’ve got to tell Tony that this new pie recipe doesn’t hold up nearly so well in the other direction</em>.</p>
<p>The rest of his mind groped helplessly for a way to regain even a shred of the dignity he’d been hoping to keep in front of McLaggen.</p>
<p>As he had followed the Auror out of his own house and locked the door behind him with a soft <em>click</em> that felt too much like a finality, he resolved if he had to cooperate with whatever was about to happen to him, he could at least vow they would not see him humiliated.</p>
<p>He wiped his mouth on the back of one coat sleeve and tried, shakily, to stand, looking up to see McLaggen look back, disgusted.</p>
<p>“What, is there a <em>problem</em>?” Malfoy asked sharply. “I haven’t been Portkeyed in probably at <em>least</em> a decade, and never over international waters. And with the exception of a warming charm a few days ago, I haven’t even been exposed to <em>magic</em> in almost five years. So you will excuse me reacting a bit strongly, thank you <em>very</em> much.”</p>
<p>“A warming charm?” McLaggen repeated.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, fuck.</em>
</p>
<p>“Yes,” Malfoy said.</p>
<p>“Cast by Auror Potter, was it?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>McLaggen scowled, puzzled and suspicious. “Why?”</p>
<p>Malfoy realized he could hardly say, <em>Because my hair was still damp and it’s winter and I was being my usual impractical self about it.</em></p>
<p>“I imagine to warm me,” he said instead.</p>
<p>McLaggen made an unimpressed noise at that. With a roll of his eyes that reminded Malfoy far too vividly of the bellicose Gryffindor he’d made a point to avoid in school, McLaggen cast a brusque <em>Scourgify</em> on both the floor and Malfoy.</p>
<p>Malfoy didn’t care for the tingling sensation it left in his mouth, or the strange antiseptic taste somewhere between strong spearmint and a particularly astringent soap.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he said anyway, then cursed himself a little for it.</p>
<p><em>Never show gratitude to a captor</em>, he could hear his father tell him, <em>lest they see you as weak. But always make a captive grateful to you.</em></p>
<p>“It wasn’t for your sake,” McLaggen replied. He turned towards the door leading from the Portkey anteroom into the Auror inprocessing office. “Come on, hurry it up, Malfoy. Haven’t got all day.”</p>
<p>Malfoy sincerely doubted that was the case, but he couldn’t find in him the energy to keep arguing with McLaggen, not now, not when he knew it wouldn’t change anything in his favor.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Almost a full twenty-four hours after Draco Malfoy arrived in London early Saturday morning, it was late Saturday night back in Maine. The Fisherman’s Breakfast was closed for the night, and its owners were getting ready for bed so they could start the whole thing over in the morning.</p>
<p>Merv and Tony’s house didn’t quite have the quaint historic character of Malfoy’s, but it had a few distinct advantages in the form of more space to move around, a front porch with a swing, and a heating system actually from the second half of the 20th Century.</p>
<p>It had, as a whole, the same vibe as the diner did of being in recovery from the ‘70s. Not exactly beautiful or sophisticated, but they had managed to give it the cozy feel of home.</p>
<p>“He said to call that number tomorrow afternoon,” Merv told Tony, for what Tony thought might have been the hundredth time since the night before.</p>
<p>“I know,” Tony said.</p>
<p>He was sitting on the foot of their bed, watching his partner pace past him from the bathroom door to the bedroom door and back again.</p>
<p>“But something’s wrong,” Merv continued.</p>
<p>“I know,” Tony said.</p>
<p>“But you’re not <em>upset</em>?”</p>
<p>Tony sighed and caught Merv by the wrist as he passed, pulling him close and looking up to meet his eyes. “Babe. Stop. Of <em>course</em> I’m upset. Of <em>course</em> I’m worried. You <em>know</em> that. You’ve gotta know that. <em>But</em>”—he gently pulled Merv towards him to kiss him—“but one of us has to keep calm here. And in my experience, that’s not gonna be the one of us who’s spent all day worrying aloud on loop.”</p>
<p>“Are you telling me I’m being over-emotional here?”</p>
<p>“Mmm, no. Not <em>over</em>, I don’t think.”</p>
<p>“Melodramatic?”</p>
<p>Tony chuckled a little. “Not fair,” he protested. “How’m I supposed to disagree with that? That’s just your natural state.”</p>
<p>“Someone was <em>listening</em>, though. Or he <em>thought</em> someone was, anyway, because of what he said about Gene’s imaginary cat.”</p>
<p>“And then he gave you a phone number to call if you haven’t heard back by tomorrow afternoon, telling you it was Gene’s but it’s a phone number in the UK somewhere,” Tony finished for him. “Ayup, got it. I <em>know</em> all this already. We’ve been through it how many times today? And going over it again still won’t give us more information than we already knew.” With comforting sympathetic eyes, Tony ran a hand through the thick dark hair curved over Merv’s ear, around the side of his head to the back of his neck. “I also wish we could do more to help than just worry and come up with implausible explanations for the whole weird thing. It’s driving me fucking <em>nuts</em> too, babe. I hate this as much as you do.”</p>
<p>“And you think I should wait until tomorrow afternoon to call that number like I said I would?” Merv asked, but before Tony could reply, he answered for himself, “No, you’re right, of course I can do that. Of course I can trust that Alfie has enough information and good judgment to know what he’s asking. He’s a smart kid; he’s got a good head on his shoulders; he knows how to take care of himself. You’re right. I don’t wanna risk making things more complicated by getting involved before I need to.”</p>
<p>“As much as I like being told I’m right,” Tony said, “all I was gonna say was that if you call England now, it’s like five in the morning there on a <em>Sunday</em>, and that’s really a bitch of an hour to get a phone call at, especially from a mystery number, so you probably wouldn’t even get an answer.”</p>
<p>Merv found himself smiling at that. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re very practical?”</p>
<p>“Only you, and you’re using yourself as a comparison point,” Tony told him, “so I’m not sure that means anything.” He pulled Merv in close for another kiss. “But honestly? Your best bet at this hour is waiting until tomorrow anyway.”</p>
<p>Merv heaved a very put-upon sigh, as if the idea of agreeing with Tony filled him with regret. “You’re probably right.” Climbing on the bed around Tony, his lean legs bracketing his partner’s on either side, Merv positioned himself straddling Tony’s lap. He buried his fingers in Tony’s thick beard as he tilted Tony’s face up to kiss him again, and again, trying to lose himself in the feel of Tony’s mouth on his, Tony’s body big and warm and soft against him, all safe real things to anchor him and distract him from the unknowns that still troubled him, so far out of his reach.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sunday morning, Harry had the pleasant surprise of learning that Lily was still prone to greeting the sunrise with shrieking. Not <em>crying</em>, but just announcing to the entire flat in wordless banshee glee that she was now awake and they should be too.</p>
<p>With the children gathered around the little kitchen table in their pajamas, distracted by a stack of colored paper and a big box of crayons, Harry got to making pancakes for breakfast.</p>
<p>He tried to make a few shaped a bit like teddy bear heads, one big circle with two smaller circles for ears, and a face of M&amp;Ms. The faces, however, turned out a bit unnerving after the pancakes were flipped and the candy melted against the skillet.</p>
<p>Luckily, Albus and James didn’t seem to mind.</p>
<p>Albus was particularly preoccupied with his crayon drawing. He had been very taken with <em>The Black Cauldron</em> the night before, so he explained to Harry that the large black-and-purple figure in the center was the Horned King, who had made friends with the pig (a round pink shape with four short legs), and had invited his bird army (a countless number of multicolor upside-down <em>V</em>s in the space above).</p>
<p>James was focused on illustrating a plan for his room in the new house. The main feature seemed to be a large green snake in a tank.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in the city, Ron was making sunny-side-up eggs and sausages for himself and Hermione, while she buttered slices of toast and got distracted poring over the Sunday morning newspaper.</p>
<p>There was no news of note.</p>
<p>Part of Hermione was relieved. A slow news Sunday should mean business as usual; it should mean society was ticking along right as rain, which was all she’d ever wanted of the world after a war. Except that now, after the last week of waiting for something to blow up, she had finally admitted to herself how much she had longed for a good fight to come her way.</p>
<p>What were her conversations with Terry if not a yearning for new ammunition? New causes to add to the tidy pile of political policies she fought for according to procedure and policy, and someone who understood, who was maybe even hungrier for change than she was, and so much more powerless to affect it.</p>
<p>Malfoy was eating scrambled eggs and a muffin in the DMLE complex, watched by a weekend shift Junior Auror who seemed too fresh and new to have the courage to say anything much beyond a couple stammered orders that he phrased as requests, with a polite <em>please</em> tacked onto the end, his voice upturning into a question.</p>
<p>
  <em>Let me know when you’re done, please?</em>
</p>
<p><em>Keep waiting, please? I’m—I’m sure they’ll get things sor-sorted soon. It’s just. It’s the weekend. And I’m sorry, but—Your continued, er, cooperation is required, please</em>.</p>
<p>Malfoy wanted to hate him, but couldn’t find the motivation. What energy he had for hate and anger were already spoken for and kept deep in reserve, nursed quiet and low for when the time was right to relight the embers.</p>
<p>George was puttering around the shop before it opened, tidying a few displays, flipping through his notebook of new ideas. He had a sticky bun from the bakery across the street and a mocha from the coffee shop just beyond the Leaky Cauldron on the Muggle side, made with extra chocolate, extra whipped cream, and an extra shot of espresso.</p>
<p>The Sunday Classic Rock Breakfast Hour was playing on the Wizarding Wireless Network from the radio behind the counter. The DJ queued up a song from the Weird Sisters’ debut album—“Brief Candle”—which George remembered listening to on a Walkman, sitting on the Hogwarts Express with Fred and Lee on the way home from their second year. The DJ called it a throwback and George felt—as he did more often than he liked to admit—as if he might be getting older than he’d ever expected to.</p>
<p>In Soho, Terry woke up in a large bed that wasn’t theirs, in a sleek modern flat that wasn’t theirs. They hadn’t meant to spend the night. Spending the night made it too close to serious. Spending the night made them too close to being something that needed to be cared for.</p>
<p>Their lover—the word they’d accept, though it was one letter past the one they secretly wished they could use—had woken up before the crack of dawn, as he did every morning, weekday and weekend alike. He was already showered and clothed, wavy red hair parted and combed as if with a ruler, and he slid back into his own bedroom to sit on the edge of his bed beside Terry, who was still tangled and unclothed in the cloud-white duvet, eyes blinking with sleep.</p>
<p>“I’ve put the kettle on,” Percy said. “Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”</p>
<p>Terry yawned. “Not unless you’re offering something stronger,” they mumbled, pitching it just enough like <em>maybe</em> a joke to give themself deniability.</p>
<p>“It’s not even nine in the morning,” Percy said.</p>
<p>“But it’s the weekend.” Terry rubbed their eyes to avoid seeing Percy’s disappointed expression, but they still heard the little impatient-regretful sound he made.</p>
<p>“Someday,” Percy said after a moment’s pause, his voice cool and collected, “I’d like to earn the right to worry about you.”</p>
<p>And back again at a different flat in a different Muggle building in a different part of the city, Harry Potter was getting his three children ready for the day.</p>
<p>“Where we goin’?” Albus asked, as Harry helped him into his prized rubber boots patterned with pink and lavender ducklings.</p>
<p>“Remember how we went to Regent’s Park before Christmas?” Harry asked. “I thought we could do that again today. Maybe go into the zoo and see—”</p>
<p>“<em>The Reptile House</em>?” James cut in, face lighting up.</p>
<p>“Well, yes. Among other things. And then we might walk along to the pond and—”</p>
<p>“FEED DUCKS?” Albus yelled, pointing at his boots to illustrate.</p>
<p>Lily shrieked and clapped. “Dugs!”</p>
<p>Their wander through the London Zoo took the definite delay Harry had expected in the Reptile House, James going from exhibit to exhibit with a single-minded awe, until they turned the corner and saw a zookeeper doing a presentation with a young Jamaican boa constrictor draped around her shoulders.</p>
<p>“<em>Oh my god, Dad</em>,” James gasped, grabbing Harry by one hand and Albus by the other to drag his entire family in close.</p>
<p>Albus was mildly interested in the snake winding lazily up the zookeeper’s arm, while James was transfixed by every word of her talk.</p>
<p>Lily was in Harry’s arms, entertained by singing a little tuneless song as she tugged gently at his curls.</p>
<p>At the end of her presentation, the zookeeper said, “You’re invited to come touch Opal if you would like. With your parent’s permission, of course.”</p>
<p>James whirled to face Harry, his eyes pleading.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Harry said. “Er, I…” He wasn’t sure why he hesitated.</p>
<p>He had thought he didn’t have any problem with big snakes, even after everything.</p>
<p>The Jamaican boa—Opal—curled her head around the zookeeper’s wrist to look at Harry, tongue flickering in and out. “<em>Perfectly safe, I assure you</em>.”</p>
<p>Harry rolled his eyes ruefully. “<em>Oh, go on, if you insist</em>,” he said, waving James toward the zookeeper.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until he caught the odd puzzled look the zookeeper gave him that Harry realized he had addressed entirely the wrong member of that conversation.</p>
<p>They took much longer in the zoo than Harry had originally planned, so Lily had already begun to fuss by the time they were back out in Regent’s Park.</p>
<p>“Time to feed ducks?” Albus asked, brandishing the plastic bag of four biscuits he’d been carrying in his coat pocket.</p>
<p>“Oh, I dunno, fella,” Harry told him. “Your sister’s getting pretty sleepy. We might need to head home soon.”</p>
<p>Albus’s eyes grew wide and dismayed. “But you said.”</p>
<p>“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but—Well. Okay. Let’s go see the ducks, but <em>quickly</em>. Next time we come, we can plan a longer visit with them, all right?”</p>
<p>The four strolled down to the pond. Albus and James went down to the water’s edge, where they tried to coax ducks over with biscuit crumbs. Harry sat on a bench a few meters away with Lily in his lap, bouncing her gently on his knee and singing one of the children’s songs he’d made a point to learn when they were expecting James.</p>
<p>It didn’t help much.</p>
<p>Lily’s mumbly fussing escalated to tears, which escalated to her howling from having been out too long. In the startling lack of self-preservation that children seem to have when they’re so very small, she simultaneously went limp like a sack of potatoes and flopped backwards with a wail, trusting in fate and her father to keep her from falling headfirst to the ground.</p>
<p>Harry caught her and held her tight to his chest, bouncing her and rubbing her back, making soothing shushing sounds.</p>
<p>Not for the first time in raising three babies, he had a sense of almost hearing comforting words he recognized in those sibilant sounds.</p>
<p>Still Lily cried.</p>
<p>He had been through this countless times with her by now. He knew that when this happened, the best bet was to keep soothing her and let the episode ride itself out until she was drained and sleepy and dozed right off in his arms.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that could take a while.</p>
<p>“Hey, James?” he called. “I’m taking care of Lily for a sec. Keep an eye on your brother for me, all right?”</p>
<p>“Sure, Dad!” James called back.</p>
<p>Harry directed his attention back to calming his little daughter in his arms.</p>
<p>An older woman walking past smiled knowingly at him. “Quite an age for little ones, isn’t it?” she commiserated.</p>
<p>“I don’t know where she gets the lung power,” Harry agreed.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, when Harry was starting to run out of lullabies and nursery rhymes and Lily was riding the last wave of little hiccupping sobs down towards quiet, somewhere at the pond’s edge, Albus shouted, “SHIT!”</p>
<p>“Oh, hell, what now,” Harry muttered.</p>
<p>James was ankle-deep in the mud and the wet, feeling around in the water, his eyes wide and panicked. As Harry approached, he straightened up and held out what he had dropped.</p>
<p>Harry’s mobile phone lay flipped open in the outstretched wet-mittened palms of his son’s hands.</p>
<p>“James, <em>what </em>on<em> earth</em>… ?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” James apologized in a rush, eyes welling up. “I was watching Albus and there was a duck he liked and I wanted to show him how to take a photograph of it on your telephone so I made the telephone come and then I <em>missed</em> and I <em>dropped</em> it and I didn’t <em>mean to</em>, Dad, I promise, I didn’t, and I’m <em>tired</em> of dropping things and messing up all the time and I’m sorry, I’m <em>sorry</em>, I’m so—”</p>
<p>“James. James. Stop.” Harry set Lily carefully in the grass beside him as he crouched down and took his mobile from James. Remembering something he’d read once, he quickly removed the battery from the phone and stuck the pieces in his coat pocket, then took James’s hands in his own. “Hey, sport. Take a deep breath. It’s okay. Accidents happen. But right now, you’re all wet and your sister needs a nap, so I need you to help me get us all back home.”</p>
<p>James still seemed on the brink of wanting to cry, but he nodded resolutely, chin up, looking in that moment so much like a miniature version of his father.</p>
<p>Back at the flat, Harry got Lily cleaned up and asleep for an afternoon nap while James changed into dry clothes. He then felt around in his kitchen cabinets until he found the canister of rice to put the pieces of his mobile phone in, so the rice could absorb the moisture overnight.</p>
<p>After setting Albus up with an old Doctor Who videotape on the living room, Harry sat down with James at the kitchen table.</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m not mad,” he said. “My mobile will probably be fine by this time tomorrow. And even if it isn’t, it’s not the end of the world. But you <em>do</em> know that if you want to borrow something that isn’t yours, you should <em>ask</em> first.”</p>
<p>James’s gaze was fixed on his lap. “Yes, Dad,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“I forgive you. It’s okay to want to take a picture, just ask me first next time. I’m not mad at you dropping it; that was an accident. Accidents happen to everyone. Me, your mum, your Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, Miss Luna—”</p>
<p>“And Professor Neville?”</p>
<p>Harry laughed. “Oh, <em>especially</em> Professor Neville. And he’s a professor at <em>Hogwarts</em>.” He looked at James, a little more serious now. “The thing I want to ask you about, is what you said when you were apologizing to me. Don’t worry, there’s no possible wrong answer: What did you mean when you said you made it come to you?”</p>
<p>James furrowed his brow and looked away for a second, thinking hard. “You <em>know</em>,” he explained slowly, “when you want something so you ask for it to come here, inside your head… And then it does?”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Harry told him thoughtfully. “I’ve never done that <em>myself</em>, not exactly how you do, but it sounds pretty neat. How long has this been happening?”</p>
<p>James shrugged one shoulder. “Right before Christmas hols. But it doesn’t <em>always</em> work. Just <em>sometimes</em>.” He looked up at Harry. “Am I in trouble? Should I <em>not</em> do the thing?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, c’mere, sport.” Harry wrapped James in a tight hug. “You’re not in trouble, I promise. Just make me a promise, okay?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You start doing anything else that seems special to you, and you tell me or your mum about it,” Harry said. “You don’t have to <em>not</em> <em>do them</em>. Just listen to your conscience and do what you think is right, just like with everything else in life.” He sighed. “And maybe try not to do those things at school where people might notice. People are funny about that sort of thing sometimes.”</p>
<p>“What kinds of things did you do?” James asked. “Talk to snakes?”</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “Wait, did Mum tell you that?”</p>
<p>James shook his head. “You did it today? At the zoo? Remember?”</p>
<p>“Did you <em>understand</em> that?”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>,” James said, rolling his eyes at how thick his dad was being. “<em>I</em> don’t speak snake. It was just <em>obvious</em>.” He sighed with the profound world-weariness of a seven-year-old. “<em>Mum</em> wouldn’t’ve told me that. <em>She</em> doesn’t want me to have a snake. But you.” James pointed at Harry accusingly. “You haven’t gotten one <em>either</em>. It’s like you don’t even want a <em>roommate</em> to keep you <em>company</em>.”</p>
<p>“I see you think you’ve found a new tactic for this debate,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Shrugging, James said, “I just don’t want you to be alone, Dad. Aren’t you <em>lonely</em>?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "One" by Three Dog Night.</p>
<p>Had meant to get this up a little sooner--This one was a little more transitional, plot-wise, so am looking forward to getting the next one up (hopefully pretty soon).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Seventeen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>I got too many people</em><br/>
<em>I got left to prove wrong</em><br/>
<em>All those motherfuckers</em><br/>
<em>Been too mean for too long</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco Malfoy had lived through worse weekends.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy lived through miserable weekends as a child in the family manor, the exact number of which was lost to the faint blurred memory of a childhood two decades removed.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy lived through a score of worse-than-miserable weekends in that same manor as a teenager, with hate and fear sour as bile on his tongue, while every space seemed claimed by people who sickened and frightened him, and he wondered that there should be any water or salt left in him, for how wrung out he felt with crying alone.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy lived through exactly one-hundred-seventy-one weekends in Azkaban, none of them unusual or noteworthy on its own, but all of them marked by empty despair as cold and unyielding as gray stone.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy was no stranger to feeling trapped, or miserable, or as if his fate had been taken entirely out of his hands and given to people he couldn’t hope would be kind to him.</p>
<p>A weekend idling in Auror custody should have been easy.</p>
<p>But he had changed. He had grown accustomed to a world where things were safe and certain. He had grown accustomed to being treated like a good person.</p>
<p>He had become someone else, someone softer and weaker and more hopeful than Draco Malfoy had ever been.</p>
<p>This was, then, not even close to the worst weekend of Draco Malfoy’s life.</p>
<p>It was the worst of Alfred Morris’s.</p>
<p>He was largely ignored, except when checked in on by one of the two unlucky weekend shift Junior Aurors who were given the job of making sure the Death Eater in holding was attended to and got his three square meals a day.</p>
<p>He decided by midday Saturday that he liked the stammering one more than the one with the rickety bluster, but that on principle, he would refuse to remember either of their names.</p>
<p>McLaggen stopped in on Saturday afternoon to grin smugly. “The Head Auror’s going to <em>love</em> talking to you,” he said.</p>
<p>Malfoy took his time looking up from the very important business of examining his own fingernails. “Oh?” he asked, arching one slow eyebrow. “Is he here then?”</p>
<p>“Well, no. It’s the <em>weekend</em>.” McLaggen scowled. “You’re not so <em>important</em> as to be an <em>urgent matter</em>, Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“Really? Then why kidnap me at midnight on a Friday?”</p>
<p>“You weren’t <em>kidnapped</em>,” McLaggen snapped. “You agreed to enter custody in relation to the matter the Auror Department plans to resolve with you.”</p>
<p>“Right, of course. Silly me. I am, after all, exceedingly well-known for my agreeableness.”</p>
<p>McLaggen soon gave up and left when he realized Malfoy was not as fun to gloat at as he had hoped.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Hammond came by the office on the flimsy excuse of having something to pick up in the off-hours of his East Sussex field work.</p>
<p>While he was there, of course, he might as well swing by and bully the Junior Auror on duty into letting him gawk and crow over his colleague’s victory for a bit of Sunday afternoon fun.</p>
<p>“Oi, you really turned into a fat fuck, didn’t you,” Hammond announced by way of a greeting.</p>
<p>Malfoy tilted his head to one side, calm and inquisitive. “And you are… ?”</p>
<p>It wasn’t Malfoy’s favorite encounter with an Auror, but at least he could add Hammond to the list of people he was content to hold a long grudge against.</p>
<p>Malfoy checked his watch. It was one in the afternoon now.</p>
<p>Eight in the morning in Maine. Still at least a few hours until afternoon there. Still at least a few hours before Merv was supposed to call Harry.</p>
<p>Those few hours crawled by, second by endless second.</p>
<p>The Junior Auror with the self-conscious bravado brought him a dinner of a chicken-and-mushroom pie and chips a little after six in the evening.</p>
<p>Malfoy ate as slowly as he could, trying to kill as much as he could by concentrating on taking as much time as he could finishing every bite of mediocre pie, every last slightly soggy chip.</p>
<p>The Junior Auror cleared his throat about halfway through and began to shift impatiently from foot to foot, thus ensuring there was no way in the world Malfoy would hurry things up even in the slightest.</p>
<p>It was seven in the evening. Two in the afternoon back home.</p>
<p>Was it still too early for Merv to call?</p>
<p>He had expected Merv to try as soon as he thought he could.</p>
<p>He memorized a thin forked crack in the plaster ceiling. He imagined it was a river and planned where he would build a house, right where the river split in two, on the bank of the righthand tributary. It would be made of stone, like a cottage he’d glimpsed in the countryside once, beyond the farthest boundaries of the Malfoy estate, and had tried to sneak a look at whenever he could slip along the hedge-walled gardens, down the far lawn, and through the copse of bone-white birch, before anyone would notice he was unaccounted for.</p>
<p>He imagined a stone house by the river, windows open to the breeze, gauzy curtains stirring.</p>
<p>He built a little footbridge arcing from the front path over the water to a delta of salt hay and cattails.</p>
<p>It was three-thirty back home. The Sunday lunch rush—such as it was in January—should be over at the Breakfast.</p>
<p>It would smell like coffee and chowder and maple syrup there.</p>
<p>Malfoy pictured a low stone wall around the back garden of the house by the river.</p>
<p>He wound vines like thick lacework over the house’s face, and burst them with blooms of vibrant red. No, yellow. No, white at the edges, blushing pink towards the center.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure if they were anything like real flowers.</p>
<p>He didn’t have any friends who knew much about plants.</p>
<p>The gauzy curtains floated inward to a big brass bed. More than enough room for two, but Malfoy imagined himself alone in it, looking out at the sun over the glittering water.</p>
<p>Four o’clock in Maine.</p>
<p>The cottage had a big kitchen, bigger than the space probably allowed. There was a wooden farm table in the middle, with a row of vases and pitchers and canisters, all full to bursting with marsh grasses and wildflowers.</p>
<p>Someone had a skillet on the hob, making eggs for breakfast.</p>
<p>Malfoy chose not to imagine who the someone was, thick black hair unruly from sleep in the morning sunlight.</p>
<p>Someone ought to be showing up any minute now.</p>
<p>Someone ought to have gotten a frantic phone call and known that it meant Malfoy was here, Malfoy was caught, Malfoy <em>needed</em> someone.</p>
<p>And someone ought to have come when he got it, reckless and righteous, brave and stupid and wonderful.</p>
<p>It was almost five back home, almost ten at night here in London.</p>
<p>Nobody came.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry got to work at exactly eight o’clock sharp on Monday morning, against all temptation to sleep in and risk having their tardiness noted.</p>
<p>They were still feeling tetchy and fragile, licking their wounds from the argument they pushed Percy into the morning before, as if determined to prove they didn’t deserve to spend the night in his bed and wake up to Sunday sunlight and a maddeningly handsome, maddeningly proper man offering to make them a cup of tea.</p>
<p>Maybe they <em>did</em> prove what they set out to, but the victory felt wretched, so they celebrated it alone in their room with a bottle of firewhiskey, spitefully trying to find triumph in being everything Percy was worried about them becoming.</p>
<p>But here they were, showing up for work on time, despite their hangover—although it wasn’t nearly as bad as they had expected, considering how much they’d managed to drink the night before.</p>
<p>Almost an hour later, they were trying to focus on a stack of paperwork, hands wrapped around their warm mug of Earl-Grey-and-hair-of-the-dog.</p>
<p>There was a little papery rasp through the crack under their closed office door, followed by the battered fluttering of a folded lavender interdepartmental memo in their face.</p>
<p>They snatched it out of the air and saw the sender’s department seal on the side.</p>
<p>“This had better not be a fucking apology,” they muttered.</p>
<p>It wasn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>DATE: 28 January 2008</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>SUBJECT: Department of Magical Transportation (DMT) Portkey Support to Auror Department, Department of Magical Law Enforcement (DMLE)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>TO: Mx. Terry Boot, Administrative Support and Records Management, Auror Department</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>As promised: For your records / situational awareness, DMT (Portkey Division, via David Corner, Deputy, International Portkeys) received a DMLE Portkey request on Friday (25 January) on behalf of Auror Cormac McLaggen, acting on assignment from Head Auror Antiphon Abernathy. Auror McLaggen departed not long thereafter at 1045. The destination was to the following coordinates in Maine, United States of America:</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>43.2468 degrees N / 70.5986 degrees W</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>A return Portkey was activated within the Auror Department and was returned to DMT at 0600 Saturday morning by Auror McLaggen after use. This information was conveyed to the DMT Dept Head’s Office this morning as part of last week’s Portkey Division report, and is being conveyed to you the moment it was received. I anticipate you will want to discuss the matter further and hope that I can continue to be of assistance in any capacity you desire.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry set the sheet of paper on the desk in front of them, with a sensation like the bottom dropping out of their heart into their stomach.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” they said, the word coming out in a long hissing breath. “Fuck, fuck, <em>fuck, shite</em>.”</p>
<p>They went very still for several seconds, hardly breathing, every corner of their brain engaged in thinking through courses of action, trying to find one that seemed to have more than just the barest sliver of a chance at success.</p>
<p>Then, with a determined efficiency, Terry opened a drawer and pulled out a blank sheet of lavender memo paper and filled in the <em>TO</em> line.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Come talk. You owe me a favor. Especially after Friday.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They folded it into a hasty plane and released it to fly off to its recipient.</p>
<p>In the several minutes of waiting that followed, they stood and paced the room a couple of times, wishing dearly that they had a couple of their notebooks on them, the ones they carefully filled in the evening from home with ideas they had and knowledge they’d collected. Maybe there was something in one of them that could give Terry the missing piece they needed to solve this puzzle in a way that came out a win for everyone—or everyone Terry cared about, at least.</p>
<p>They were more than happy to help facilitate a loss for Abernathy and whoever else he had under his wing for this.</p>
<p>Finally, they sat back down and lit a cigarette to calm their jittered nerves.</p>
<p>The office door opened and Dubenich entered.</p>
<p>“I don’t know that I owe you a favor,” he said.</p>
<p>“You <em>don’t</em> feel bad about Friday?” Terry retorted, more sharply than they’d meant to. They had no patience left for playing nice and slow.</p>
<p>Dubenich hesitated. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>“Information.”</p>
<p>“It’s general knowledge that <em>information </em>is the one thing a person shouldn’t be giving you,” Dubenich replied. Still, he closed the door behind him and stepped into the room. “Why? What did you want to know?”</p>
<p>“Why did McLaggen go to Maine on Friday?”</p>
<p>Dubenich knit his dark brows. “How did you—?”</p>
<p>“Department of Magical Transportation sent a notice about the Portkey request for records-keeping purposes,” Terry cut in. “I keep records. Ergo.” They waved a hand to indicate that Dubenich could follow the rest of that line of reasoning himself if he wanted; Terry didn’t have time to handhold the Auror through that. “Maine. Odd place for our department to go, innit? It being, y’know, nowhere <em>near</em> Jolly Old England where we <em>usually</em> work.”</p>
<p>“As it happens, there was a matter in our jurisdiction geographically located in Maine,” Dubenich said, his professional calm almost entirely hiding the care with which he was choosing his words. Almost.</p>
<p>Terry sighed impatiently and took a drag on their cigarette. “I ain’t got time for this horseshite, Danila. Let’s stop playing, shall we?”</p>
<p>Dubenich just raised his eyebrows slightly at that, inviting Terry to explain further.</p>
<p>“Look,” Terry said. “First, I want amnesty for the rest of this conversation. The next five minutes never happened, all right?”</p>
<p>Dubenich considered. “Let me make <em>that</em> decision in five minutes,” he said. “Go on.”</p>
<p>“Draco Malfoy. That’s the ‘matter in our jurisdiction.’”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to answer that.”</p>
<p>“Don’t care,” Terry said. “It was a statement, not a question. Draco Malfoy is the matter McLaggen went to Maine to take care of. Fact.”</p>
<p>“How do you know that?”</p>
<p>“’Cause I ain’t stupid and can put two and two and two together. I’d explain <em>how</em> if I could, but thanks to you, I’ll have to leave that to you to piece together on your own.”</p>
<p><em>You went to Maine in June. After that, they shut down Project Lodestone and deemed it successful. I knew enough </em>then<em> to know what that meant.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Only then you made it so I couldn’t tell Hermione or Harry that bit, and had to pretend it was all news to me as well.</em>
</p>
<p>“What do you want from me?” Dubenich asked. “This is Auror McLaggen’s assignment. I’m largely uninvolved.”</p>
<p>“Big difference between <em>largely uninvolved</em> and <em>completely uninvolved</em>,” Terry pointed out. “I want to know what McLaggen did there. Do you know?”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t my assignment. I would prefer you not try to involve me.”</p>
<p>Terry knocked ash from their cigarette. “Fine, I’m not involving you. Just answer me two little questions as an uninvolved bystander.” They held up one finger. “One: Do you approve of how he handled it?”</p>
<p>That familiar expression crossed Dubenich’s face for the briefest second, the one that suggested he was keeping inside how dearly he wanted to sigh and throw up his hands and roll his eyes. “We’re different people. We have different… philosophies. He took a different approach than I would have done.”</p>
<p>“Hm, okay. <em>That</em> right there tells me enough that I can guess the answer to me second question, <em>but</em>,” Terry said, holding up a second finger, “where’s Draco Malfoy now?”</p>
<p>Dubenich thought hard for a moment and seemed to reach a decision. “Terry,” he said, eyes so very serious, “I’m not going to answer that question, otherwise I would have to tell the Head Auror that you knew to ask it. Instead…” He took a deep breath. “Instead, if I may be so presumptuous, I will assume I know you well enough from our months at close quarters, and can hazard a guess as to how your mind might work.” Something close to a smile slipped over his lips, too fleeting to disrupt the overall solemnity of his face. “Don’t worry, I’m not bold enough to say I <em>know</em> how your mind <em>does</em> work, but—But if it’s thinking along anything close to the lines I suspect it might be, I won’t answer your second question, but I <em>will</em> give you the answer for a different question you <em>didn’t</em> ask.”</p>
<p>Terry narrowed their eyes slightly, intrigued by this careful circuitous cooperation. “And that would be?”</p>
<p>“I am not going to intervene in another Auror’s work when I have no grounds. That’s not who I am, and there would be nothing to be gained if I did.” He took a deep breath. “On the other hand, I may outrank you, but you aren’t in my direct chain of command, so one <em>could</em> argue that I <em>also</em> have no grounds to tell you what you can or can’t do. As though you’d listen to me anyway.”</p>
<p>“<em>Interesting</em>,” Terry said, a sharp feline smile spreading over their face. “And just out of idle curiosity, no reason, just wondering: What would you tell me not to do if you had the grounds?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Dubenich answered, completely honestly. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you would even be capable of. You have no authority, you have limited familiarity with certain aspects of Auror procedure and protocol, and you don’t have the respect of anyone handling this matter. At all. They <em>will not care</em> one whit what you think or say, and you directly trying to interfere would likely make things worse.”</p>
<p>“Oh, is <em>that</em> all? Easy as pie, then.”</p>
<p>“<em>But</em>,” Dubenich continued, “you are still Terry Boot. And if the time I spent working with you taught me anything, it’s that I would not want to be a problem being solved by you.” He paused. “Not that I’m telling you there’s a problem. Or that you should solve it. Of course.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Terry agreed.</p>
<p>He made a show of checking the time. “Now, if you’re finished taking up my morning, I have to be off. I have work of my own to do.”</p>
<p>“By all means,” Terry replied. “Don’t want to keep the great Auror Dubenich from restoring law and order to the land.”</p>
<p>As Dubenich left, he paused in the doorway to turn back to Terry. “Be careful. <em>S bogom, Teryosha</em>.”</p>
<p>Terry grinned, looking far braver and more confident than they felt. “Oh, Danila. Bruv. I’m always <em>exactly</em> as careful as I mean to be. Don’t you worry your pretty head about <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>A little more than an hour earlier, just before seven-thirty that morning, McLaggen walked into Malfoy’s holding cell.</p>
<p>Malfoy hadn’t been asleep; he’d slept very little in the last two days.</p>
<p>“Get up,” McLaggen said. “Head Auror Abernathy wants to speak to you.”</p>
<p>“Now?” Malfoy asked, pretending to yawn and stretch, theatrically unhurried. “Do I get breakfast first, at least?”</p>
<p>McLaggen responded by giving him the same pointed knowing once-over he’d given Malfoy back in Maine, as if he didn’t need to actually <em>say</em> what he was thinking for his point to be clear.</p>
<p>It was.</p>
<p>McLaggen was an amateur at subtlety, especially when up against someone like Malfoy.</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, I know,” Malfoy agreed, rolling his eyes. “Your lot really needs to get more creative. Between you and the Neanderthal who came in to point and stare yesterday, that <em>particular</em> tune is getting a bit one-note.”</p>
<p>“Aw, are you <em>sensitive</em>?”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy said. “Bored.” He stood up. “All right, no breakfast. Understood. Go on then, take me to your fearless leader.”</p>
<p>McLaggen cast a completely superfluous charm binding Malfoy’s wrists together before leading him out of the holding cell and just four doors farther down the same hallway.</p>
<p>This new room was small and windowless, with a wooden table in the middle and two chairs on either side, lit by everburning candles in brass hurricane lamps on the wall.</p>
<p>It wasn’t the same room Malfoy had been interrogated in after his arrest, but it looked similar enough to put him on edge.</p>
<p>Abernathy sat in one of the seats facing the door. He did not stand when Malfoy entered.</p>
<p>McLaggen crossed to sit in the other chair beside Abernathy, nodding curtly across the table to direct Malfoy to sit as well.</p>
<p>Malfoy sat down with as much fluid grace as he could manage with his wrists still bound.</p>
<p>“Good <em>morning</em>, Head Auror Abernathy, how <em>are</em> you today,” he said, smooth as silk, pouring every ounce of his old polished posh politeness into the greeting.</p>
<p>“Death Eater Malfoy,” Abernathy said. Every syllable clipped like it was a fight for him to keep from bellowing.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s expression of genteel deference hardened imperceptibly at that, evident mostly in a coldness coming into his gray eyes. “Oh no, if you please, sir,” he murmured in a tone like the drip of an icicle, “Death Eater Malfoy was my father. You may address me as Mr. Malfoy.”</p>
<p>It gave Malfoy such satisfaction to watch how Abernathy’s jaw clenched in anger at that.</p>
<p>“<em>Death Eater Malfoy</em>,” Abernathy said again. Malfoy imagined he could hear the grind of his teeth like a grist stone. “Your cooperation has been requested by the Auror Department on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, in order to resolve the matter of your family’s former estate.”</p>
<p>“Don’t give me too much credit for cooperation,” Malfoy said. “I was taken into custody and spent the weekend in a cell. I hardly think I deserve any praise for volunteering to come to London out of the goodness of my heart.”</p>
<p>“Under the circumstances,” Abernathy said, “the Department would have been open to the idea of releasing you on bail, should anyone have come willing to make such an offer.”</p>
<p>“<em>Did</em> anyone?” Malfoy asked. “Come about me, I mean.”</p>
<p>McLaggen shook his head. “No, ‘course not. Who would have done <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>Malfoy wanted to think McLaggen was lying to break down his morale, but the confusion on McLaggen’s face seemed too genuine to be an act.</p>
<p>“I have no idea,” Malfoy said. “Nobody, I suppose.”</p>
<p>
  <em>It’s fine. You didn’t need him to ride in and save you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>After all, he’s no knight in shining armor, and you’re no princess trapped in a tower.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You’ll survive this just fine on your own.</em>
</p>
<p>Holding up his still-charmed wrists, he asked, “Would you mind? Between <em>this</em> and that comment about release on bail, I’m feeling awfully under arrest for someone who’s been told he isn’t.”</p>
<p>McLaggen took off the spell. “You’re not under arrest. You’re in custody,” he said. “As you’ve been <em>told</em>.”</p>
<p>“Hm, perhaps the nuance of difference is lost on me.” Malfoy rubbed one wrist absentmindedly, his cool gaze turned back on Abernathy. “It wasn’t necessary to bring me here in person to tell me which of my suggestions you plan on putting into effect,” he said. “Sending a letter would have been fine.”</p>
<p>“Don’t play dumb,” Abernathy advised him. “We both know you’re not stupid enough to believe <em>you</em> get to make demands and have the government just roll over and acquiesce.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s stupid of me.”</p>
<p>“Arrogant, then.”</p>
<p>Malfoy favored him with a small smile. “<em>That</em> I won’t argue.” He rearranged himself, leaning forward to prop his elbows on the table. He laced his fingers together and propped his chin on his folded hands. “So, that being agreed on, if you’ll refer to my letter—”</p>
<p>“I didn’t bring your <em>letter</em>,” Abernathy said.</p>
<p>“Well, <em>that</em> seems ill-prepared for your own meeting,” Malfoy replied. “Don’t worry, I’m happy to recap for you. The first potential solution would be to simply revert ownership back to me, at which point, I’d be more than happy to sell the property back at an incredibly reasonable price and accept that payment as reparations. That way, I get back what’s mine, but you still get back what you want. The second potential solution was for me to—”</p>
<p>“None of that is happening. You know what you were asked to do.” Abernathy reached into the pocket of his robes and produced a packet of parchment, unfolding it to reveal a fresh copy of the paperwork, clean of all Malfoy’s revisions.</p>
<p>He rotated the stack of papers to face Malfoy and pushed them across the table to him, and then produced a quill and ink, which he placed beside the stack of parchment.</p>
<p>Malfoy politely slid the paperwork aside. “I feel the Auror Department isn’t appreciating the lengths to which I’m willing to cooperate.”</p>
<p>“The Auror Department is appreciating your cooperation to exactly the extent it deserves,” Abernathy said.</p>
<p>“<em>Ha</em>,” McLaggen added in triumph.</p>
<p>Malfoy arched one long slow eyebrow at McLaggen. “I’m sorry, is there a <em>reason </em>for your being here? Do you serve a purpose, or is your presence purely ornamental?”</p>
<p>He was being reckless. He knew that.</p>
<p>Somehow, he felt like he’d be proceeding with more caution if he believed there was still a chance that Harry Potter might still be coming for him, might still try to help him, might save him from the corner he was painting himself into.</p>
<p>But Malfoy knew he had been right all along; Harry Potter owed him nothing. Harry Potter couldn’t be expected to put his entire career on the line just to get a former Death Eater out of the comeuppance he’d more than earned for himself.</p>
<p>Harry had warned him this would happen to him.</p>
<p>Harry had done his best.</p>
<p>Harry owed him nothing.</p>
<p>Abernathy was scowling. “Am I to take it this is you refusing to sign?”</p>
<p>“Afraid so,” Malfoy said. “I had thought my position was clear from my letter.”</p>
<p>He could see a muscle working at the corner of Abernathy’s jaw. Probably grinding his teeth.</p>
<p>“All right,” Abernathy said. “Let’s start over from the beginning.”</p>
<p>Starting it over from the beginning did not change things as much as Abernathy hoped, although it painted for Malfoy a vivid portrait of how this might have played out if either one of the men in the room had been the first one to come to Maine.</p>
<p>He might have signed then.</p>
<p>Now it was too late.</p>
<p>Now he was in too deep. Now he had chosen to value his pride over all else, and so he couldn’t back down.</p>
<p>He couldn’t give them the satisfaction.</p>
<p>At least another hour passed with Abernathy rumbling like a stormcloud threatening to burst and McLaggen as the smarmy blunt instrument, handicapped by only having his words with which to land blows, thick and obvious and much too easy for Malfoy to parry.</p>
<p>Malfoy pushed the sleeve of his cardigan back just enough to make a show of looking at his watch. “Goodness,” he commented, “you really cleared your Monday schedule for this. I’m honored. Then again, I imagine it’s not every day you get a new Death Eater in holding. It must be like Christmas for you.”</p>
<p>McLaggen didn’t like that remark.</p>
<p>Abernathy liked it less.</p>
<p>It stopped being about the Malfoy estate.</p>
<p>It had never been about the Malfoy estate.</p>
<p>“You ungrateful jackanape,” Abernathy thundered, “you got off <em>easy</em> and you <em>know</em> it. You had a slap-on-the-wrist prison sentence and haven’t suffered a day for your crimes since.”</p>
<p>McLaggen grinned nastily. “Having it <em>so bloody easy</em>. Living at the beach and getting fat on—” He broke off, coming up blank on any conception of what people ate in Maine.</p>
<p>“Seafood,” Malfoy supplied. “A lot of lobster fishing on the coast there. The diner I work at also does fantastic pies. The chocolate pecan in particular is phenomenal. The lemon chess is quite good as well, although I don’t believe Auror Potter cared for the cornmeal in the custard.”</p>
<p>“Auror <em>Potter</em>?” Abernathy snapped.</p>
<p>“Yes. I can be very hospitable, when given reason to be.”</p>
<p>Abernathy waved that away with a strong gesture that looked more aggressive than dismissive. “My predecessor showed you undue leniency,” he continued, not to be swayed from his original point. “You were given more than you deserve under Robards’ leadership.”</p>
<p>“And you intend to rectify that,” Malfoy finished for him.</p>
<p>Abernathy went positively livid. “Sign the damned paperwork.”</p>
<p>“I would prefer not to,” Malfoy demurred.</p>
<p>And that began the whole process anew.</p>
<p>Malfoy grew more and more aware of how close and warm the room felt, airtight and candles burning.</p>
<p>McLaggen was looking a bit flushed and shiny; Abernathy was too damned respected and formidable to sweat.</p>
<p>Malfoy weighed his options and decided—<em>fuck it</em>—he would take off his cardigan.</p>
<p>Both Aurors’ eyes were immediately drawn to the Dark Mark on his forearm.</p>
<p>McLaggen seemed genuinely uneasy for the first time all morning. He shifted in his seat and leaned over to Abernathy, asking in a not-quiet-enough undertone, “Is it… Does it look like that ‘cause of—You know. Dubenich.”</p>
<p>Abernathy shot him a hard-edged warning look. “<em>Don’t</em>,” was all he said.</p>
<p>After hooking his cardigan over the back of his chair, Malfoy gracefully arranged his forearms on the table in front of him and said nothing.</p>
<p>He wasn’t going to let on how much McLaggen had managed to let slip in his muttered fragment of a question.</p>
<p>McLaggen thought the Dark Mark was so vivid and black because of whatever they had done to reach out to it.</p>
<p>And that Dubenich was the one who had figured out how to do it.</p>
<p>Well, not <em>just</em> Dubenich.</p>
<p>He wouldn’t have been able to crack the Dark Mark on his own, of course.</p>
<p><em>After all</em>, Malfoy thought, <em>you can’t hack into a computer without a computer to hack into.</em></p>
<p>Or at least, he didn’t think so. Malfoy’s knowledge of computer hacking was fairly limited. The Dark Mark he was much more certain of.</p>
<p>Maybe they thought they had caused this. Maybe this would worry them.</p>
<p>Let them worry.</p>
<p>They didn’t deserve the truth. <em>Potter</em> barely deserved the truth, but had gotten it anyway—Or a sanitized version of it, clean and tragic, without the messy pieces that textured the memory of that night for Malfoy: the seedy nightclub in an unsavory corner of the wizarding district of Bayonne; the vile things the Beauxbatons boy said as he ground against Malfoy while they danced, certain his viewpoints were shared, certain these were the sweet nothings with which to whisper a Death Eater into bed; the loneliness and self-loathing that clung to his skin like a fever sweat and let him go along, go along, let himself be used as the thing this boy told him he was; shaking with trying not to scream while the boy was in the shower after, and seeing the wand on the dresser; being overcome then with all the hubris of disgust and adrenaline and desperation and fear and hopelessness and cocaine and suicide and how many vodka tonics and the taste of an odious young man still on his body and being done, being done, knowing that there was no way this could fail, because death might be as good an outcome as any. Maybe better.</p>
<p><em>That</em> was the Draco Malfoy who would see being Dale’s trust fund boyfriend as a happy ending.</p>
<p><em>That</em> was the Draco Malfoy who would see being constantly belittled as a blessing so much sweeter than the constantly being hated he’d grown accustomed to.</p>
<p>That was not the Draco Malfoy who sat in an interrogation room now, across from the Head Auror and one of his star employees.</p>
<p>“Make yourself as comfortable as you want,” Abernathy said to him. “You’ll be here as long as it takes.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked at him coolly. “That’s quite all right,” he said. “I’ve nowhere else to be. I’m <em>more</em> than happy to stay as long as it takes for you to see sense.”</p>
<p>Abernathy glowered at Malfoy, as if Malfoy were personally to blame for the fact they were no longer in the old halcyon days of getting to hit a suspect for mouthing off in interrogation.</p>
<p>Maybe you still could.</p>
<p>Maybe just not a Malfoy.</p>
<p>“What the hell d’you think you’re playing at,” McLaggen said. “You haven’t got a way out of this and you know it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy favored him with a brief disinterested gaze before returning his attention back to Abernathy. “Where was I before we got sidetracked?” he asked. “Oh, yes. I was elaborating on my proposal for the conversion of the Manor house into a school, in order to standardize the pre-Hogwarts primary education curriculum for students not fortunate enough to benefit from the Muggle school system’s many advantages. You know, I really <em>do</em> think this would go so much faster if you had my letter on hand to refer to…”</p>
<p>As so on it went, time slipping into nonexistence as the hours of the morning passed in this small windowless room with a conversation that went around and around in the same circles for what might have been the dozenth time, or the thirtieth, or the hundredth.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in the building, Terry was getting back to their desk from a private unknown errand, while elsewhere still in London, Harry had almost two hours yet to go before he would dig his mobile out of the rice canister and reassemble it.</p>
<p>McLaggen’s patience was worn to snapping. This was not nearly as fun as he had been expecting when he collected Draco Malfoy to be humiliated and put in his place, and it was all Malfoy’s fault for refusing to play along and do either of those things.</p>
<p>“Don’t you <em>act</em> like this,” McLaggen spat. “Don’t you act so fucking <em>superior</em>, Malfoy, like you’re on some high horse for being a contrary arsehole about something you never even missed <em>having</em> in the first place. You don’t <em>want</em> it back, do you? You just want to be a thorn in our side, from spite, from petty fucking <em>spite</em>, you absolute <em>prick</em>.”</p>
<p>Abernathy cleared his throat but said nothing. He had no interest in chastising his best Auror in front of a Death Eater, especially when everything that Auror said seemed fair and true.</p>
<p>“I think I’ve made it pretty clear what I want,” Mafloy came back, his voice a little sharper than he’d meant it to be. He had been fighting so hard to keep a façade of being calm and unflappable—<em>cold distant Malfoy, all ice, no heart</em>—but it was starting to crack.</p>
<p>“You want to play at being so damned better than everyone, like you always did back in school, like <em>anyone</em> ever envied you or thought you were worth <em>anything</em>. Like we didn’t all know you were just a snotty Death Eater worm who never did a single thing worth a damn on his own, who never had a <em>single thing</em> that his father didn’t get for him, probably including earning yourself that Mark on your arm—”</p>
<p>“I’m <em>sorry</em>, am I getting a lecture on <em>nepotism</em> from Cormac ‘Have I mentioned my Uncle Tiberius?’ McLaggen? Oh, that <em>is</em> rich.”</p>
<p>“Shove it, Malfoy. My uncle is a respected and influential member of the wizarding community, <em>especially</em> within the Ministry of Magic, and I—”</p>
<p>“Kind of proving my point there, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>McLaggen blinked, thrown off for a moment, before smiling maliciously. “Anyway, you claimed not to <em>remember</em> me,” he pointed out. “Caught you in a lie there, didn’t I?”</p>
<p>“Oh, boy, you got me, I sure did. Better send me down for perjury.” Malfoy rolled his eyes and gave McLaggen a pitying look he knew used to wither. It had been a good while since he felt <em>that</em> vicious, but he knew some skills would never quite leave him. “Don’t worry, McLaggen. You’re right. You’re not as forgettable as I pretended you were. Who could forget the wannabe Keeper so shit that he made <em>Weasley</em> look like World Cup material?”</p>
<p>“<em>Death Eater Malfoy</em>,” Abernathy rumbled, finally inserting himself into the conversation with just those three words, each delivered like a blow.</p>
<p>“Or was I supposed to forget,” Malfoy pushed on, “that you were the one who got handsy with Granger at one of Slughorn’s parties and she spent the whole night trying to keep away from you? No, don’t play innocent. Zabini was there. He told me. And he could come up with plenty of truths he disdained about you without resorting to making up something so frankly entirely <em>plausible</em>.”</p>
<p>“I will not have you casting aspersions on Auror McLaggen,” Abernathy snapped. “Auror McLaggen is a well-respected member of the community, an Auror with an impeccable record, and a veteran of the Battle of Hogwarts.”</p>
<p>“Oh, get <em>fucked</em>, Malfoy,” McLaggen shot back, on his feet now, palms braced on the table in front of him. “You <em>bought</em> your way onto the Slytherin team, I <em>earned</em> my place fairly—You were <em>nothing</em>, you were a whinging weak useless little rag desperate to cozy up to whoever would let you be their pathetic lackey; first Umbridge, then You-Know-Who. You just wanted to cause <em>pain</em>, didn’t you, and do <em>evil</em>, like the Death Eater you were so <em>eager</em> to become, as though that would make up for it, as though anyone would actually <em>fear</em> you for it. As though you weren’t a <em>joke</em>, as though we didn’t <em>laugh</em> at you, as though we didn’t all know the <em>rumors</em>—”</p>
<p>Abernathy latched one thick hand onto McLaggen’s forearm in a vicelike grip. “Auror McLaggen,” he barked. “Take a walk.”</p>
<p>McLaggen’s face went red. In embarrassment, and then in anger at Malfoy for causing him that embarrassment.</p>
<p>He shut the door loudly behind him, just a shade away from slamming it like a petulant child on the verge of a tantrum.</p>
<p>“Oh, good,” Malfoy commented, refolding his hands on the table like a pair of doves settling. “Now that it’s just us grown-ups in here, perhaps we’ll get somewhere.”</p>
<p>He was reassured to see how still his hands were, and how blank he could make his face. He knew that two twin spots of color had risen high on his cheeks at McLaggen’s words. He could still feel the way his heart jumped to a fluttering beat at that last insinuation.</p>
<p>
  <em>Rumors? What rumors? What did they say? Who told them? To who?</em>
</p>
<p>Abernathy was staring at him with such an incendiary rage that Malfoy almost wished he could find it in him to show the man fear.</p>
<p>Maybe he could punish Malfoy.</p>
<p>Maybe he could put him back in prison.</p>
<p>Maybe Harry Potter had come to his senses and had rescinded his promise to do everything he could to keep that from happening.</p>
<p>That was all right.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy could get on by himself if he had to.</p>
<p>The only thing that panged in his chest and filled him with tears he could hide to cry later was the idea he might get sent down for this and never have a chance first to see Merv and Tony and Bud and Gene, and say a proper goodbye, that he might leave them forever with the heartbreaking question mark of someone they thought they knew, who one day just disappeared without reason or warning.</p>
<p>He reached over and made a show of flipping through the paperwork in front of him, slowly, slowly, forcing Abernathy to watch him read every word.</p>
<p>Halfway through, he glanced up. “If you have something more important to be doing…”</p>
<p>“Don’t think you can outlast this by stalling,” Abernathy said. “You’re not going to outwait my patience. I’ve got all the time I need to get you to sign.”</p>
<p>“And if I were to annotate this version with the notes I already gave you on the first copy?”</p>
<p>“We have a third clean copy ready. And a fourth. And a fifth.”</p>
<p>“The Auror Department’s preparation and dedication to records management sure has come a long way under your leadership,” Malfoy commented, then went back to reading, slower this time.</p>
<p>Forty minutes later, Malfoy’s attention was caught by the distant sound of what seemed to be McLaggen yelling at someone.</p>
<p>It was too far away for him to make out words or get a clear idea of the other person’s voice. All he could tell for certain was that it was most definitely not Potter’s.</p>
<p>The voice was calm and deep and somehow familiar, but it was not Harry Potter.</p>
<p>A third voice joined the altercation, although McLaggen was still the only one of the three shouting.</p>
<p>Malfoy was somehow sure he knew that voice as well.</p>
<p>“What the blasted hell is happening<em> now</em>,” Abernathy muttered.</p>
<p>McLaggen’s voice died down after a few minutes, then there was relative quiet again.</p>
<p>Malfoy pretended to be focused intently on a catalogue of the curses removed from the secondary wine cellar, but instead every fiber of his consciousness was focused on listening to what may be happening outside the small room he had been shut in for almost five hours now.</p>
<p>He wasn’t certain at first, but as the sound moved closer, he realized, yes, there were two sets of footsteps moving down the hall towards him.</p>
<p>There was a light officious knock on the door.</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>?” Abernathy barked. “<em>What is it</em>?”</p>
<p>The door cracked open just far enough for Dubenich to poke his head inside with a polite deferential nod by way of a greeting. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but I have someone here to see you. Quite urgently, I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>Abernathy rose to his feet. “Damn it, Dubenich, can’t you see I’m in the <em>middle</em> of something?”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” Dubenich replied, looking just the slightest degree uneasy now. “I’m aware of that, Head Auror. But you see, this matter is… That is, <em>this</em> matter is the <em>same</em> matter that someone is here to see you about. In light of that, may I please let him in?”</p>
<p>Abernathy scowled to hide his confusion. “No, you may damned well not. You are to take whoever this is and deal with him yourself. <em>Then,</em> after the matter is dealt with, you are to submit a report to my desk. Is that understood, Auror Dubenich?”</p>
<p>Dubenich blinked. “Oh, no, sir,” he said. “I hardly think that would be appropriate. After all, if you remember, I was not deemed to be the right fit to be allowed purview over this assignment.” His tone was still respectful, but there was something like quiet fire in the even gaze with which he met his superior’s eyes. “Therefore, I really feel that you ought to be responsible for this. Sir.”</p>
<p>And he stepped back and opened the door to let Professor Neville Longbottom into the room.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Bastards" by Kesha.</p>
<p>In all honesty, I have been <i>waiting</i> to get to this moment in the story for… awhile now.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Eighteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>All these things you taught me to fear</em><br/>
<em>I’ve got them in my garden now</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Professor Longbottom,” Abernathy said tensely. It was not quite a greeting. “To what do I owe the honor.”</p>
<p>It was not quite a question.</p>
<p>“Good day, Head Auror Abernathy,” came the reply, pleasant and polite, but not quite friendly. “I’m here for Draco Malfoy, on behalf of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was torn between wanting to look anywhere in the room <em>but</em> at Neville, and wanting to stare openly at him.</p>
<p>Neville Longbottom had come for him.</p>
<p><em>Neville Longbottom</em>.</p>
<p>Neville Longbottom, who was standing beside Malfoy’s chair, sounding so certain of himself. There was a lovely earthy bass note warming his voice now, which maybe should have seemed at odds with the still almost-cherubic sweetness of his face, but didn’t. All the parts of Neville had grown together into a whole that seemed so much more complete and self-assured than the clumsy blushing child Malfoy remembered.</p>
<p>Neville was fat and beautiful, toffee-blond and apple-cheeked. He wore a shearling-lined coat open over a butter-yellow button-down shirt and brown-and-green argyle sweater vest, with corduroy slacks and sensible scuffed work boots with a patina of topsoil. He was at odds with the small room with its close air, and yet was unapologetic about the space he took up with his large incongruous presence made of sunlight and fresh earth.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, you’re <em>here for</em> Draco Malfoy?” Abernathy asked, suspicious.</p>
<p>He was still standing in front of his chair.</p>
<p>If he stood to talk, that would look like a gesture of respect in acknowledgement of Neville Longbottom’s authority. That would not do.</p>
<p>If he sat, he would have to look up at Neville. That would not do either.</p>
<p>He did not sit.</p>
<p>“Precisely that,” Neville said, smiling pleasantly. “I’ve been led to believe that Mr. Malfoy is not being held for any crime—”</p>
<p>“By <em>who</em>? Who told you he was here?”</p>
<p>Neville knit his brow as if puzzled by that question. “Is his presence here intended to be a secret? If the Auror Department is attempting to <em>hide</em> what I’m told is a perfectly—ah, innocuous routine matter…” He trailed off with a meaningful look.</p>
<p>“What are you suggesting?” Abernathy’s brows drew together hard.</p>
<p>Neville shrugged. “It just raises questions about the Department’s intent, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“<em>How dare you</em>,” Abernathy started, but then something happened that Malfoy would never have thought he would live to see in a million years.</p>
<p>Neville Longbottom held up a casual hand to stop the Head Auror from speaking, with a polite smile and shake of his head.</p>
<p>Malfoy gaped at this man he was certain now he had never actually truly known at all.</p>
<p>“Please,” Neville was saying, “let’s not start all that posturing. I’m sure this has already taken enough of your day as it is.”</p>
<p>Abernathy looked liable to growl. “Don’t forget who you used to work for, boy,” he warned.</p>
<p>For less than a second, Malfoy was almost convinced he saw a hint of nerves in Neville’s face, only visible to him because he’d spent so much of his adolescence trying to gauge how far under his classmate’s skin he got, learning every tell of hesitation and hurt so he could know how to press harder, cut deeper.</p>
<p>But that flash was gone from Neville’s face in a blink, and he just reminded his former boss, “Used to.” He rested his fingertips thoughtfully on the table in front him and continued, “Look, Head Auror, he hasn’t been charged with anything. Therefore, that means he’s agreed to be here as a private citizen to assist with the resolution of a bureaucratic issue. And <em>therefore</em>, he can’t be held in any kind of actual custody.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have the authority to make that kind of call, Professor,” Abernathy retorted.</p>
<p>“Maybe not, but I have six and a half years prior Auror experience, which more than qualifies me to know when you are and <em>aren’t</em> justified in holding an innocent person in custody.”</p>
<p>Abernathy let out a harsh scoffing laugh. “<em>Innocent</em>.”</p>
<p>“He’s done his time,” Neville pointed out. “So. Aye, yes. Innocent. As of right now, anyroad, regardless of anyone’s opinions of Mr. Malfoy’s… previous actions.”</p>
<p>Malfoy realized then that Neville had barely looked at him since entering the room. He had stolen the occasional fleeting peripheral glance, but nothing more than that.</p>
<p>In the face of being rescued by <em>Neville Longbottom</em> of all people, Malfoy found himself wishing he was immaculate and formidable. He wished he was in impeccable dark dress robes; he wished he was thin and sharp as a whip; he wished he was perfect and beyond reproach, not a slick pin-straight hair out of place. Against his will, he wished he looked for Neville Longbottom’s benefit exactly like the bastard he had always been so needy for Neville to see him as.</p>
<p>Malfoy was self-conscious suddenly of how unkempt he felt, his hair tousled and flattened. He was self-conscious of his Dark Mark stark against his pale skin, far too visible in the way he had his forearms still on the table in front of him, hands clasped. He was self-conscious too of the t-shirt (“<em>Support the Ogunquit Memorial Library</em>”) that clung just a shade too tightly to the padding acquired around his middle.</p>
<p>He crossed his arms over his stomach, as if that might solve the second and third of those problems.</p>
<p>Neville’s eyes flicked over to him for a moment when he did that.</p>
<p>“Understandably,” Neville went on, “given those previous actions and given the situation, I <em>do</em> sympathize with the Aurors’ desire to keep track of his whereabouts, but of course you would never consider <em>continuing</em> to hold him here like a charged criminal.”</p>
<p>“He said they would have released me on bail if anyone would post it,” Malfoy said. His voice came out quiet and defeated, as if all his cold obstinacy had melted in the presence of someone else willing to be strong and fight for him now.</p>
<p>“Don’t be ridiculous,” Neville snapped then, not at Malfoy but Abernathy. “He hasn’t been arrested for any crime, let alone one serious enough to justify asking <em>bail</em>. That’s—That would be reprehensible if you actually <em>made</em> that a requirement of his release.”</p>
<p>Abernathy glared searing twin daggers at Malfoy. “Death Eater Malfoy must have misunderstood what he was told.”</p>
<p>“Oh, good, that’s wonderful to hear,” Neville replied, but he said it with the care of someone now on guard, having realized how truly far the situation was from acceptable. “So you’ll be happy to learn arrangements have been made to host him at Hogwarts for as long as he <em>chooses</em> to be here to assist you with this matter. As we might do for any former student in need of a place to stay when coming to visit from abroad.”</p>
<p>Abernathy sneered. “That’s not a thing Hogwarts does.”</p>
<p>“It’s a thing we <em>can</em> do. And so, in this case, it’s a thing we <em>are</em> doing.”</p>
<p>Malfoy stared at him. “Wait. Hold on—”</p>
<p>Neville turned to him. “Would you <em>prefer</em> to stay in DMLE holding?”</p>
<p>Malfoy glowered. “Of course not.”</p>
<p>“You will stop this nonsense right this instant,” Abernathy cut in. “Who do you think you are, coming in here like this and making demands of <em>my</em> department?”</p>
<p>Neville blinked, a little wide-eyed, and touched his fingertips to his mouth as if Abernathy’s question was surprising and a little bit foolish, but he didn’t want to be rude and laugh at it. “I’m not sure which part of that I should answer first,” he admitted. “Firstly, I guess, I should point out I haven’t made a demand; I’ve offered to do you a favor. Secondly, I—I’m pretty sure that was rhetorical, wasn’t it, who do I think I am? Because I’ll answer it if you want, but I don’t think that’ll move things along any faster.”</p>
<p>Abernathy narrowed his eyes. “This conversation has been a vivid reminder of why I don’t miss having you as an Auror, <em>Professor</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s quite a reminder for me as well,” Neville agreed. “But we don’t need to spend all day reminiscing about all that, do we, <em>sir</em>? I’m just here for Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“So you’ve said. I have not agreed.”</p>
<p>Neville’s response to that had the tone he might take with a student he was giving one last chance to avoid detention: “Would you like me to cite the regulations what protect a private citizen from being held without cause?”</p>
<p>Abernathy responded with a noise too angry to quite be a laugh. “Are you saying you actually <em>remember</em> them, Longbottom?”</p>
<p>“Well, nay, not encyclopedically. That’s not my job anymore. But I wasn’t aware you had to have a law memorized in order to be protected by it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded. “It shouldn’t be up to me to know the minutiae of Auror protocol in order to have it correctly applied to me,” he said.</p>
<p>Abernathy shifted his glare from Neville to Malfoy, its fire burning harder.</p>
<p>“Don’t talk,” Neville said to Malfoy without looking at him. “I get the feeling you’ve already said more than enough.”</p>
<p>“What a loss, not having those deductive skills on the force anymore,” Abernathy commented.</p>
<p>Neville managed a decent imitation of a polite chuckle at that. “Well, this has been fun,” he said. “But it’s time we got going.”</p>
<p>“<em>We</em>? I don’t recall saying you were permitted to take Death Eater Malfoy with you.” Abernathy’s mouth made a long thin line that was almost a smile.</p>
<p>“Funny,” Neville said, “I don’t recall asking your permission.” He touched Malfoy on the shoulder, just a quick nudge. “Come on, get up. We’re going.”</p>
<p>Malfoy found himself scrambling wordlessly to his feet to follow Neville Longbottom from the room, trying not to hear the things Abernathy was snarling in their wake.</p>
<p>Neville was moving back down the hallway at a rapid clip. “Keep up,” he muttered over his shoulder, “I’ll not be having him catch up and start this all over.”</p>
<p>“My coat,” Malfoy said. “I need my coat.”</p>
<p>“Can we find a way to get it later?”</p>
<p>Malfoy shook his head. “It’s got my meds in the pocket,” he explained in a quick undertone. “I didn’t want to ask for them this weekend and have to explain antidepressants to a bunch of—”</p>
<p>“We’ll get your coat,” Neville cut in.</p>
<p>They had turned the corner out of the corridor that housed holding and interrogation, back into the main inprocessing desk.</p>
<p>The Junior Auror working at the desk was staring at Neville and Malfoy like a deer caught in headlights.</p>
<p>It was the stammering one that had almost endeared himself to Malfoy.</p>
<p>“If you wouldn’t mind,” Neville was saying to him, “Mr. Malfoy should have a winter coat in storage.”</p>
<p>“Oh—Er, yes. Just a second. I’ll just… go get that.” He clattered out of his chair in a jumble of nervous limbs to throw himself into the storage closet behind the desk.</p>
<p>“Auror McLaggen has been urgently required elsewhere in the DMLE complex,” a voice said from around the side of the desk, even-keeled with a professional unconcern. “You’re welcome.”</p>
<p>Dubenich had seated himself in one of the waiting chairs, posture still perfect, looking for all the world like he was absorbed in a pamphlet on recent Customs changes to the regulation of imported mandrake root from outside the EU.</p>
<p>“Thanks, Danila,” Neville said.</p>
<p>“And the Head Auror is… ?” Dubenich trailed off expectantly.</p>
<p>“Probably about two seconds away from deciding it’s worth having a public shouting match with a Hogwarts professor,” Neville said.</p>
<p>Dubenich raised his eyebrows. “Oh,” he said, rising to his feet. “In that case, I had better go apologize to him. Down the hall, in private, <em>at length</em>, for having inadvertently allowed such a setback to another Auror’s work. If you’ll excuse me.”</p>
<p>As he passed Neville and Malfoy, he added, “I’ll have you know, I have never once before been reprimanded for insubordination, in all my fourteen years as an Auror.”</p>
<p>“Not a <em>great</em> brag,” Malfoy told him.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Neville said. “<em>Really</em>. I owe you one.”</p>
<p>“Consider us even for the Devonshire case six years ago,” Dubenich replied over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.</p>
<p>The Junior Auror returned then, shoving Malfoy’s over the counter into his arms. “I need you to sign for it, please,” he said, “I’m sorry, I…”</p>
<p>As Malfoy signed the Returned Possessions form, he said, “Bit of advice? Try to err on the side of not apologizing for anything from here on out.”</p>
<p>“Well, that sure is some advice,” Neville murmured.</p>
<p>Malfoy was almost sure he could <em>feel</em> the eyeroll that went with it.</p>
<p>“Come on,” Neville said. “We should be getting out of here. Follow me.”</p>
<p>Malfoy trailed close behind as Neville navigated their way out with the easy confidence of someone who had once known this building well. He led Malfoy down a circuitous path of back corridors and services halls, away from the main front lobby of the DMLE complex and towards an unassuming side door that opened into an alley loading dock.</p>
<p>At the end of the alley, when they stepped out onto the pavement along the main road, Malfoy felt a slight whooshing pop in his inner ears as they stepped through the enchanted outer boundary of Ministry property.</p>
<p>He blinked up at the bright gray January sky.</p>
<p>Cars and lorries trundled past on the road before him, while a trio of teenage girls pored over a magazine at a sidewalk newsstand a couple buildings down to the right. A man in a tan overcoat tried to hail a minicab from across the road and failed.</p>
<p>People filed down into the Tube station at the end of the block.</p>
<p>“I’m in London,” Malfoy said, a little foolishly. And then: “Did Potter ask you to come?”</p>
<p>“Harry? Nay, I haven’t heard from Harry at all,” Neville said, shaking his head. “Terry called me this morning and seemed certain they were the only one who knew to do anything. They hadn’t talked to Harry, they said. They thought that—Well, as they put it, they thought ‘a respected Hogwarts professor might have more sway than the Department’s current discipline case.’ I’ve got little more idea what’s going on than <em>that</em>, but Terry gave me enough to know it was the right thing to be here and do this.” He made a small sardonic smile, looking out across the road in front of them. “Believe me, I’m probably no more enthusiastic about it than you seem to be.”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy said. “No, that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t asking what Terry did <em>today</em>. Potter should have… I don’t know. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>Neville seemed a bit puzzled and turned to look at him. His confusion turned quickly to something soft and sweet like pity.</p>
<p><em>Kindness. It was kindness</em>.</p>
<p>Neville Longbottom was still too soft in every possible sense of the word, and it had taken them all far too long to learn that <em>soft</em> did not mean <em>weak</em>. And <em>sweet</em> did not mean <em>stupid</em>.</p>
<p>It had taken Malfoy watching this man face down Antiphon Abernathy to see that about Neville.</p>
<p>With the limited information Terry Boot provided in their frantic plea for help, Neville had come prepared to wrangle a cold hard Pureblood heir if he had to. He hadn’t been entirely ready to reckon with the man he had been given instead: ragged and helpless, unassuming in blue jeans and an outgrown t-shirt for a local library, with soft blond waves untidy around a pale heart-shaped face with its sharp little chin, its plump ruddy cheeks, circles bruise-purple under winter-sky eyes.</p>
<p>Somehow, he still had to attach to this man everything he still thought and felt about the name <em>Draco Malfoy</em>.</p>
<p>Malfoy made it easier to reconcile then, by bristling uncomfortably under Neville’s gentle scrutiny. He wrapped his arms around himself and narrowed his eyes, guarded and irritable.</p>
<p>“So what now?” he asked. “Or is your plan to just stand here uselessly on the sidewalk?”</p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” Neville replied. “Unless thanking people is another thing you advise not doing, like apologizing?”</p>
<p>“That boy apologized for everything, like he’s sorry for even existing,” Malfoy retorted. “This career will eat him alive from both sides if he doesn’t cut that out.” He sighed. “That’s not—You’re right. Thank you, for coming and… doing this, despite your I’ve-no-doubt-very-busy schedule of teaching—What <em>do</em> you teach?”</p>
<p>“Herbology,” Neville said.</p>
<p>Malfoy arched his eyebrow incredulously. “Oh? You mean to tell me Hogwarts has former Auror Neville Longbottom, war hero, wielder of the Sword of Gryffindor, and they <em>don’t</em> have you on Defense Against the Dark Arts?”</p>
<p>Neville grimaced. “I wouldn’t want <em>that</em> job, even if I were asked.”</p>
<p>“And am I really getting strongarmed back to <em>Hogwarts</em> with you?”</p>
<p>“Afraid so.” Neville didn’t look any more pleased about that prospect than Malfoy felt. “At this point, we’re better off keeping your side of the street clean, so to speak. So you’d best play nice and do what you say you’re going to do.”</p>
<p>“<em>I</em> never said I was doing anything. I just sat there and let some enormous Yorkshireman make my decisions <em>for</em> me.”</p>
<p>As soon as the words had left his mouth, he wished he could take them back.</p>
<p>That was the sort of descriptor that he might have casually tossed at Neville back in school, easy and thoughtless as breathing.</p>
<p>There were so many things he used to do to Neville without a second thought, and all of them made him feel a little dizzy with the shame of it when he thought about it now.</p>
<p>Well, <em>partly </em>with shame. But also dizzy from hunger, he realized. It had been such a <em>long</em> time since dinner the night before.</p>
<p>Neville was looking at him with an expression of unsurprised disappointment.</p>
<p>Malfoy knew he should apologize.</p>
<p>Apologizing to Neville Longbottom was terrifying, like leaping from a cliff, like trying to chip away at a mountain of wrongdoing with a hand spade.</p>
<p>Instead, he said, “So how are we getting back there then?”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Neville blinked. “Right…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d been right eager to get us out of there afore Abernathy caught hold of you again, so I didn’t, ah… think of that bit.”</p>
<p>Neville had a sheepish sorry look on his face now. It reminded Draco so intensely of the child he tormented in school that it just made the shame burn harder in the pit of his belly. It made him want to laugh and cry and get swallowed by a hole in the ground and hug this too-familiar near-stranger for being suddenly so much something he had missed painfully without realizing it, as if facing the boy you once belittled mercilessly could now feel like a coming home.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s eyes felt like stinging.</p>
<p>“I’ll get us there, I’ve got it,” Neville promised. “First, though, have you eaten anything today? You look like—I’d not’ve put it past them to have neglected that, is all. Come on, there’s a chippy on the corner I used to go to back when I worked here.”</p>
<p>He led Malfoy to the end of the block, and let him wait outside while he went in to buy them something to eat.</p>
<p>Malfoy watched him through the shop window, seeing how he made easy small talk with the sturdy motherly Muggle woman behind the counter, both of them laughing and smiling.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, he came back out with a brown paper bag and two cans of Coke.</p>
<p>“Hold these a moment, would you?” he asked, handing them off to Malfoy. He stepped forward to the edge of the pavement then, and gave a wave of his wand hand.</p>
<p>The Knight Bus careened up to them not half a minute later.</p>
<p>The porter was a boy of maybe fifteen or sixteen, with a shiny freckled face like a fresh penny and his uniform cap at an impish angle in his auburn curls. “Hello, and welcome to the Knight Bus,” he announced in a broad Knockturn Alley cadence that panged Malfoy with nostalgia. “Step aboard, gents, and—Cor, Professor. What’re you doing <em>here</em>?”</p>
<p>“Hello, Mickey,” Neville greeted the boy. “How have you been?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I been all right. No complaints here.” Mickey shrugged and spread his hands as if to say, <em>It is what it is, who am I to grumble?</em> “And yourself? Where you off to, Professor?”</p>
<p>“We’re back to Hogwarts,” Neville told him. “Just popped down to London to pick up my, ah…” He trailed off, not quite sure what to call Malfoy. “My colleague,” he settled on.</p>
<p>Mickey’s attention turned to Malfoy for the first time since he’d seen Neville. “Of course. And how d’you do, sir? Pleased to—” His eyes went wide as it clicked into place who his professor’s colleague was. “<em>Oh</em>,” was all he managed after that.</p>
<p>Neville gave him a gently pointed look.</p>
<p>Mickey blinked. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean nothing by it—Beg pardon, sir,” he said to Malfoy.</p>
<p>Malfoy waved that off as if it hadn’t bothered him in the slightest. “It’s fine, think nothing of it.”</p>
<p>“I—Er, of course. Thank you.” He paused, trying to find the thread of his spiel again. “Right then. Fare’s eleven Sickles, unless’n you want a toothbrush and hot water bottle, then it’s fifteen.”</p>
<p>Neville dug in his pocket for two Galleons and handed them to the boy. “Just a regular fare for me, but he’ll take the toothbrush and hot water bottle,” he said. “The change is yours.”</p>
<p>Mickey beamed. “<em>Thank</em> you, Professor!” He paused. “You may want to stay on this level of the bus, if you don’t mind me saying. One up is a half-dozen blokes sleeping off a stag do on their way back to Inverness.”</p>
<p>The ground level of the Knight Bus was nearly empty, its rows of cots tidily made up with the pride and efficiency of a porter looking to prove his ability. Only one was occupied; a little old witch sat up front, knitting something much larger than she was out of fluffy pale blue yarn, and paying the new passengers no mind at all.</p>
<p>Neville and Malfoy made their way back to sit across from each other on the two cots at the very end of lefthand side of the bus. When Neville drew shut the curtains around them, the click of knitting needles and the murmured conversation between Mickey and the driver all died away, indicating that the curtains were enchanted to provide as much privacy as possible to the bus’s passengers.</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t the porter be in school?” Malfoy murmured in an undertone anyway. “He looks like he can’t be older than sixth year at most.”</p>
<p>“Fifth year,” Neville said. He spoke at a normal volume, confirming Malfoy’s hypothesis about the curtains’ sound-veiling properties. “Michaelmas Burke. Sharp as a tack with a heart of gold. But Knight Bus porter pays good honest wages, and for some, it’s worth more to get in with a steady job than it is to spend another three years’ worth of textbook and school supply money, just to come out three years behind in experience at the only jobs what would’ve been open to them in the first place.”</p>
<p>Malfoy placed his toothbrush and hot water bottle on the duvet beside him. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he said nothing.</p>
<p>“First time on the Knight Bus?” Neville asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded.</p>
<p>Reaching over and pulling down the window blinds, Neville remarked, “Probably best not to look outside too much then. It’s a far smoother and less, ah, <em>disorienting</em> experience if you don’t see what’s happening on the journey, and I figure you’ve had more’n your fair share of excitement for the day already.” He opened the brown paper back from the chip shop and handed Malfoy a packet wrapped in white paper.</p>
<p>Taking it and unwrapping it, Malfoy looked inside and asked, “Wait, is this a <em>French fry sandwich</em>?”</p>
<p>Neville let out an astonished laugh at Malfoy’s confusion. “<em>My gods</em>, you’re saying you’ve not had a chip butty afore?”</p>
<p>In his surprise, Neville’s accent shone even harder its native Yorkshire, thick and rich as peat. The exclamation sounded so much like the first year Longbottom boy Malfoy remembered, just a couple octaves deeper now.</p>
<p>To continue his growing shame over all things Neville Longbottom, Malfoy <em>also</em> remembered taunting that first year boy for sounding like a pastoral bumpkin, and then hadn’t cared enough to notice by the end of the year, Neville had learned to start smoothing down his words forever, dropping every <em>tha</em> for <em>you</em>, every <em>nowt</em> becoming <em>nothing</em>.</p>
<p>Malfoy had done more than his fair part to take that away and never even noted its loss until now.</p>
<p>He took a bite to buy himself time to work up the courage to say what he knew he should.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry I called you an enormous Yorkshireman,” he started, just to dip one tentative experimental foot in these uncharted waters. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”</p>
<p>“Of course not,” Neville said, “I’m sure it was just force of habit.”</p>
<p>“Wait, hold on. I don’t think that’s entirely fair—”</p>
<p>Neville sighed and put aside his own chip butty to give Malfoy his full attention. “Isn’t it?” he asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy frowned and picked at a pulled thread in the duvet cover to avoid meeting Neville’s eyes. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I hadn’t been thinking about the sorts of things I used to say to you when I said that. I just… <em>said</em> it, I guess. All that other stuff, it was a long time ago. It’s not as though I’ve been sitting around the last decade reminiscing over precious memories of things I did back then. I don’t hardly even remember any of that anymore—”</p>
<p>“Fat little crybaby,” Neville said. “That one was Pansy—the <em>first</em> time, at least—but you two were thick as thieves, so it was really just a coin-toss which was doing the talking and which was doing the laughing. Fat useless lump. As fat and ugly as his stupid disgusting toad. Hogwarts’ own walking mountain, the rare and elusive Yorkshire land-whale—”</p>
<p>“I <em>said</em> that? <em>Christ</em>. I was a dick.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded, but didn’t even seem angry. “Aye,” he agreed, “you were. But you said worse to others.” He paused. “You and Pansy would also sometimes pretend the floor was shaking when I walked past.”</p>
<p>Malfoy winced. “We don’t <em>have</em> to take this trip down memory lane, you know.” He remembered that old gag; he remembered laughing giddily with Pansy as Neville went red and rushed into his chair, hunching his shoulders, curling his whole self inward.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, we might at that,” Neville said.</p>
<p>The Neville Longbottom who sat across from him now didn’t slouch. He didn’t try to make himself smaller. The way he held his body didn’t apologize for its size, for its shape, for the space he occupied with it.</p>
<p>In his adolescence, Malfoy would have loathed that kind of confidence in someone like Neville. And so would have fought hard to keep such a feeling from being allowed to take root and grow.</p>
<p><em>How dare someone like Longbottom have a chance at </em>liking<em> who he is, </em>he would have thought, <em>when </em>I<em> have to hate myself so much</em>.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said. “I’m sorry for having spent so much time making a sport of being awful to you. I’m sorry for trying to make you feel stupid, and fat, and useless, cowardly, forgetful, clumsy, incompetent, poor, like some kind of backcountry lummox—<em>All</em> of those things. <em>None</em> of that was true, and I’m sorry for all of it. I was wrong about you.”</p>
<p>The look on Neville’s face was a sad one as he shook his head and said, “Sorry, Malfoy. Wrong answer. Try again.”</p>
<p>“What do you <em>mean</em> ‘wrong answer?’” Malfoy retorted, resenting Neville for throwing him off like that and making him feel wrongfooted and unclever.</p>
<p>“What do you think I mean?”</p>
<p>Malfoy occupied himself with taking as big a bite of his chip butty as he could, to buy himself a little time to think before replying. After he swallowed, he cracked open his can of Coke and took a drink.</p>
<p>Neville waited patiently.</p>
<p>“<em>Because</em>,” Malfoy started. He tried to sound certain, but he couldn’t help the sense he was feeling his way up a staircase in the dark, expecting any moment to put his foot down on a step that wasn’t there and fall. “Because I said the reason I was wrong to call you those things was because you <em>weren’t</em>. But that’s not it, is it? No, don’t answer that. That wasn’t me <em>asking</em> you; that was purely rhetorical.” He thought a moment, not wanting to say what he knew he needed to say next: “Because you <em>are</em>. Some of those things, anyway. You’re not incompetent, or stupid. Or cowardly—let’s be honest, that’s me projecting, if anything in this world ever was—and you’re not useless. But you <em>were</em> clumsy, and forgetful, and fat. And maybe you still are those things. At least, I’ve no way of knowing yet whether you’re still clumsy or forgetful—”</p>
<p>“I am.”</p>
<p>“—But that doesn’t <em>matter</em>, does it? You could have been <em>all</em> of those things or <em>none</em> of them, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that you didn’t deserve a minute of the years of hell I put you through.” He took another bite of his chip butty, then sighed. “<em>And</em> on top of all that, it’s a real dick move,” he went on, using one of Tony’s turns of phrase, “to think it’s a compliment to lie to someone and say, oh, no, it wasn’t true, you weren’t the things you were. Because that just reinforces the idea that those are bad things to be, and Merv would have my head on a plate if he heard me try to pull <em>that</em> bullshit. He would have thought better of me. <em>I</em> should have thought better of me, now.”</p>
<p>Neville was quiet for a moment, thinking through everything Malfoy had just said to him. “Good,” he said finally. “Much better answer that time.”</p>
<p>Malfoy took another swallow of Coke and added, “Of course, I could tell you all sorts of things to make excuses. I could explain how ludicrously <em>awful</em> my upbringing was, or what a complete disaster and sorry excuse for a human being I was in those years. Or how I was afraid of being so many of those things—useless and cowardly and weak—or how I was afraid of wanting things I shouldn’t want, or… I don’t know. That’s not an excuse. I just… wanted you to know that about me. That I was a whole entire walking tragedy back then, whose opinions should have been worthless.”</p>
<p>A small sympathetic smile curved over Neville’s mouth. “Oh, gods, Malfoy, I already knew all <em>that</em> about you being a disaster back in them days. That’s no epiphany there.” He took the last bite of his butty, crumpled the paper into a small ball, and tossed it into the little wastebin slot built into the side of the bus. “This may come as a surprise, and all,” he added, as if an afterthought, “but a lot of people at Hogwarts managed to be closeted without taking it out on me.”</p>
<p>Malfoy managed to recover his surprise fairly quickly into an aloof cool look, eyebrows raised. “I don’t recall saying <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Neville made a face, blushing a little. “Sorry. I just assumed that’s what you meant about being afraid to want things you shouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“It <em>was</em>, but I wasn’t trying to come out <em>while</em> apologizing, as I’m fairly certain that would cheapen the sincerity of both gestures.”</p>
<p>Neville worried his lower lip between his teeth for a minute, brow knit in thought. “I don’t suppose it would help to hear… Ah, nay, probably wouldn’t, but—But I <em>did</em> always kind of have a bit of a feeling that was the case. Never said anything to a soul, I swear it; wasn’t my place to do <em>that</em>. But I <em>did</em> think it.”</p>
<p>Malfoy stared at Neville, his attention entirely diverted from picking the last chips out of the crust-end of bread. “You <em>did</em>? You? <em>How</em>?”</p>
<p>“Well, you tormented me,” Neville said, “but you also didn’t think enough of me to pay me attention, did you? So I kept an eye on you more than you knew, trying to keep on guard for where you were, whether you might be about to appear and pull something on me—And I maybe started to notice…” He let out a long breath as he ran his hands through his tousled caramel hair. “Maybe it’s not my place to say.”</p>
<p>“Say what?” Malfoy asked. “Go on, I’m fairly certain I’ve established myself as someone in absolutely no position to get angry, given the full rundown on what a prat I used to be to you, and yet you <em>still</em> swept in and fucking <em>rescued</em> me despite all that.”</p>
<p>“Enormous Yorkshireman <em>ex machina</em>?” Neville suggested.</p>
<p>“And I probably owe you some kind of life debt for it,” Malfoy agreed. “Or at the very least my firstborn, though I’m afraid you may have to wait awhile for that one. My habits don’t exactly lend themselves to conception, as it goes. Which just brings us back to what you think it’s <em>not your place</em> to say.”</p>
<p>“Well. Thing is.” Neville rubbed the back of his neck and looked apologetic. “I saw the way you looked at Harry when nobody was paying attention.”</p>
<p>Malfoy swallowed. “But <em>you</em> were paying attention.”</p>
<p>“And I was nobody. At the time.”</p>
<p>“Did you ever… ?”</p>
<p>Neville shook his head fervently. “Not my place to say no—nothing.”</p>
<p>“You can say <em>nowt</em> in front of me; I won’t laugh at you like I would have once.”</p>
<p>“Still. I didn’t tell a soul what I’d seen in you.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Malfoy said, surprising even himself with the strength of sincere feeling he heard in his voice.</p>
<p>“And thank you,” Neville said, “for being sorry.”</p>
<p>He didn’t say Malfoy was forgiven.</p>
<p>That was all right.</p>
<p>This was enough for now.</p>
<p>This was more than enough for all time, if this was as far as he would ever get with Neville Longbottom, who had already been miles and years kinder than Malfoy deserved, and who would never owe Malfoy the smallest shred of <em>anything</em> ever again.</p>
<p>Still, Neville had started to chuckle a little. “You know what?” he said. “You know what I never had a chance yet to say to you?”</p>
<p>“What?” Malfoy asked.</p>
<p>Neville smiled. “Hello, Malfoy.”</p>
<p>With a laugh, Malfoy replied, “Hello, Longbottom. It’s—Well, it’s not really <em>nice</em> to see you again, considering the fact I had to spend a weekend in a holding cell to make this reunion possible.”</p>
<p>“Fair ‘nough,” Neville said. “Would you like to brush your teeth?”</p>
<p>“What are you suggesting?”</p>
<p>“That you should brush your teeth,” Neville returned.</p>
<p>“All right, fine,” Malfoy said, getting up with his toothbrush. “Message received and understood.”</p>
<p>He pulled back the curtain and went out to the little WC at the back corner of the bus.</p>
<p>When he was inside, under the dim yellow light, he had the first chance to see himself properly in a mirror since leaving Maine.</p>
<p>He looked, not to put too fine a point on it, like <em>utter hell</em>.</p>
<p>The best he figured he could do was brush his teeth and wash his face, then comb his hair with his fingers and pull it back as neatly as possible.</p>
<p>When he was satisfied that he looked marginally less like someone who had spent the weekend in a cell, he went back out through the open curtain and sat back down across from Neville.</p>
<p>“So,” Neville said, “now that we’ve gotten through the, ah, reunion conversation, as it were… <em>What in Hecate’s name</em> is going on with you and the Aurors? And does Harry being the Department’s current discipline case have owt to do with all that?”</p>
<p>Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”</p>
<p>“Honestly,” Neville said, “it’s <em>Harry</em>. It could be literally anything.”</p>
<p>Malfoy gave Neville a rundown of events, starting with Harry turning up on his doorstep, through to the moment Neville had entered the interrogation room.</p>
<p>He glossed over a lot of things, namely everything that happened over lemon chess pie in his kitchen, and every subsequent conversation afterwards, dancing carefully around that interlude and the door it threatened to open between them.</p>
<p>But since he was talking to an ex-Auror, with all the knowledge that implied, he gave as much information as he possibly could about his inherited estate, the details of the Ministry’s paperwork, every single action taken by the Aurors, and even the contents of the letter he had written Abernathy.</p>
<p>Neville listened intently, nodding at all the right moments and asking the kinds of clarifying questions a good Auror would.</p>
<p>After Draco was done, Neville sat back in his cot and was quiet for a long minute. “What do you want most now?” he asked. “Do you want to end this business and go home? Do you want to get your estate back? What?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know anymore. I don’t want to back down.”</p>
<p>“Good. You <em>could</em> back down and sign the paperwork. But that would be like telling them they were right all along and can get away with all they’ve done here. I won’t stand for that.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> won’t? I beg your pardon, when did <em>you</em> get to have a say in this?”</p>
<p>“When I cancelled classes and told McGonagall I was coming down to drag your arse out of DMLE custody. You don’t have to listen to me, that’s right enough, but I’m <em>involved</em> now. Can’t argue me <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“So I’m not backing down,” Malfoy said. “Maybe this is a petty place to take a stand, but it’s all I’ve got.”</p>
<p>“And you feel you’re owed that,” Neville said. “The chance at reparations, and the chance to prove you’re not the same bastard as they threw in Azkaban a decade ago now.”</p>
<p>“You make this sound like… like a public opinion matter. Like I’ve come back to England to prove myself.”</p>
<p>“Haven’t you?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Excepting the fact you’re <em>in</em> England and sticking around to fight it out,” Neville pointed out. “You sound like you’re back to <em>me</em>, anyroad, whatever you’re thinking.”</p>
<p>Malfoy scratched a thumbnail back and forth along his lower lip. “My home,” he said. “How long have I just decided to… ?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Neville said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get what you want.”</p>
<p>“I can’t just <em>not go back</em>,” Malfoy said, voice coming out sharp.</p>
<p>Neville bit his lip and looked hesitant. “Might be a bit, at the least,” he said. “Abernathy doesn’t take things lying down, and the law moves slow as sin more often’n not. Which is why I asked what you wanted, ‘cause if it was just to go back home, you got an easy answer to that one. A hard pill to swallow for one as proud as you, sure, but a straightforward answer nonetheless. Say sorry and sign it over.”</p>
<p>“But if I don’t swallow that pill?”</p>
<p>“You’ll have to stick out a thorny path of some kind here. You’ve got good folk on your side, and maybe they’ll come up with a solution, but I spent long enough trying to get the law to work to know even the best course for you is going to run you slow to reach its end.”</p>
<p>“Good folk?” Malfoy repeated, a scoffing note in his voice. “Who?”</p>
<p>“Me, for one. Against my will, maybe, but I’m in it now and you’ve got me for the best I can give. Terry, who put their livelihood on the line to call me in. And Harry, from the sounds of it.”</p>
<p>“But he did nothing. Merv promised to call, and he’d have told Potter I’d been gone for the whole weekend. You’d think that he’d <em>do</em> something with that, if he was still amenable to putting his neck on the line for me.” Malfoy sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe he was offered a deal, to keep his job if he lays off this business. Maybe he realized he’s fucked if he keeps this up, without them having to spell it out for him. Maybe he knows he’s got a reputation and a family and a whole <em>life</em> riding on what he does, and it’s not worth it to throw all that away for an old nemesis an ocean away.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know either,” Neville admitted. “I don’t know what he’s thinking or what he plans to do. Everything I know about Harry and this business I learned from <em>you</em> just now. And I haven’t had much of a chance of late to catch up with him in general, so I… I can’t say for sure where his life is right now. Considering all he’s been through. I hear he’s doing all right, though.” He paused. “Don’t let Harry’s… <em>existence</em> influence what you decide to do here. This can’t be about <em>him</em> for you, Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“It’s not,” Malfoy said. “<em>Christ</em>. No. No, what you said you remember from school—what you <em>think</em> you remember, that is—that was all over in my mind years ago. Not even on the radar anymore, I promise you.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded, satisfied with that answer.</p>
<p>Malfoy quashed the little part of him that smugly suggested Neville was gullible for believing him, as though that were something to be proud of.</p>
<p>“What happens with your life back home then?” Neville asked. “What do you tell them while you work this out?” He paused. “You <em>will</em> tell them <em>something</em>, right?”</p>
<p>“Of course I will!”</p>
<p>“Of course you will,” Neville echoed. “Didn’t want to believe you still seemed the person I could imagine leaving them out to dry, writing them off as <em>only Muggles</em>.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, no,” Malfoy said, feeling shaken at the very notion. He realized how exhausted and frayed he was, now that he was sitting here, safe and able to let his guard down a little. His guard, it turned out, was protecting the fragile shards coming undone inside him over the past days, brittle and cracked with exhaustion and worry, with anger and hurt. Those fragile shards were working themselves loose through him now, pricking at the corners of his eyes with the very thought of callously casting Merv and Tony and his whole life aside. “I could never do that to them, whatever else ends up happening. They’re—Maybe it’s stupid to say, but they’re as close to family as I’ve got.”</p>
<p>“<em>Malfoy</em>. Why would that be stupid to say?”</p>
<p>“Because it’s soppy and sentimental,” Malfoy said. “It’s emotionally needy—It’s…” There were those sharp little stings in his eyes again. “It’s everything I never wanted Neville Longbottom to see in me,” he said, a bitter smile at one corner of his mouth.</p>
<p>“You never wanted me to see you as someone who has people care about him?” Neville asked. “Or you never wanted me to see you as someone who cared about other people?”</p>
<p>“Yes. Both.”</p>
<p>“That’s stupid.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Neville said, “so long as you know. Do you reckon your family back home would think it was stupid?”</p>
<p>Malfoy swallowed hard, resolutely refusing to cry at the sound of someone so casually readily accepting the people he cared about most as his <em>family</em>. He shook his head. “Anyway,” he said, sitting up straight and clasping his hands in his lap, all objective and pragmatic now, “I don’t know yet what I’ll tell them. I imagine that largely depends on what Potter’s seen fit to share with Merv. Which may possibly just be that he has no idea what’s become of me because I’m not his <em>job</em> anymore.”</p>
<p>So much for objective and pragmatic.</p>
<p>Neville seemed to want to roll his eyes, but ignored Malfoy’s comment. “If you gave in and signed,” he continued, “they’d have had the satisfaction of taking you down a peg and would probably leave you to your own devices. Maybe send someone to check in on you every now and again, just to prove they can. But if you fight it, they’ll fight back. I’ve been thinking of that since you told me all everything what’s happened, and… And I can see the shapes of <em>some</em> things, at least. Harry and Terry should be able to help fill in details later. But the broad shape of the matter is this: If you pick this battle with the Aurors, things kept quiet will be brought to light. Some of those are <em>good</em> to expose, like the stunt McLaggen and Abernathy pulled with you. But at the end of it… I’m sorry, Malfoy, but I can’t see a way around the fact that identity fraud is a crime.” He bit his lower lip, frowning in thought. “I think Harry’s right: I don’t think they would prosecute for it. But it’d be a hard sell on letting you back to Maine under illegally obtained fake documents. Maybe there’s a way around that. There may well be. Terry’s too clever for their own good by <em>miles</em> and Harry’s knowledge of the ins and outs of the law is fresher and less spotty than mine, so with the two of them…”</p>
<p>Malfoy’s fingers in his lap tightened around each other, his knuckles white and hands trembling. “What are you <em>saying</em>? That I never get to go home?” The questions came out soft and hoarse.</p>
<p>“That’s <em>absolutely not</em> what I’m saying,” Neville replied. “I don’t know what may happen with all that, but I saw the potential they may try’n use that on you. And I thought it only fair to tell you now, so’s you know to keep an eye on it, because it wouldn’t be <em>right</em> of me to keep a thought like that from you. You deserve to have all the knowledge you can be given, to arm yourself with and prepare yourself against.” A sort of grim little smile appeared on Neville’s face. “Back when I was an Auror, I always believed a body ought to be given all the information they could about the options allowed them and the possible consequences. A person should be able to trust the law, aye, but they should also be helped to use it for themselves instead of just—trusting the people who keep the law to be doing what’s best.”</p>
<p>“Oh, boy, you must have been real popular at work,” Malfoy muttered.</p>
<p>“I often wasn’t. But I don’t send anyone to prison who doesn’t <em>have</em> to go.” He looked at Malfoy. In that calm even expression, Malfoy could see how this man had once been a child worthy of the Sword of Gryffindor. “You <em>will not</em> be going to prison, Malfoy. That <em>will not</em> be happening. But I needed to tell you that—about the identity fraud you may not get to keep committing. You might need to think what you’ll do if you fight this and then end at no longer being able to claim—What was it you said? Albert something?”</p>
<p>“Alfred,” Malfoy said. His mouth felt dry. “Alfred Morris. Alfie.”</p>
<p>He hadn’t thought of that, somehow, in the full week since Potter left Maine.</p>
<p>He had written his letter to Abernathy in self-righteous anger, confident in his own cunning and intelligence to risk that sort of gamble. After that, he had thought of it in such stupidly <em>stupidly</em> black-and-white terms: Either he would win, or he would lose. Either he would go back to his own life victorious, or he would fail entirely, which was unthinkable.</p>
<p>He had never, in his own hubris, looked at the way he could stand up for what he wanted and still have something else taken from him. He hadn’t considered the fact that victory could still come hand in hand with a loss.</p>
<p>But Neville understood that.</p>
<p>Neville felt out right away what it would hurt most to have taken from him, and had given him the choice now, to walk into this clear-eyed, knowing what he was choosing to risk. Or to walk away.</p>
<p>His home. His family.</p>
<p>He was being offered the chance now to give in and keep those things.</p>
<p>He imagined telling the people back home—<em>his family</em>—about the decision put in front of him. As if he could, even if he wanted to.</p>
<p><em>You’re too young and ornery and goddamn fearless to be playing nice with the cops</em>, Gene would tell him.</p>
<p><em>Fuck the man</em>, Bud would add. <em>As we used to say in the old days</em>.</p>
<p>(<em>They still say that</em>, Alfie would promise him.)</p>
<p><em>So you’re going to let them fuck you over for things your father did?</em> Tony would shake his head and run a hand over Alfie’s hair. <em>Oh, princess, I thought you were done owing anything to that man.</em></p>
<p><em>I thought you had more fight in you than that</em>, Merv would agree, lacing their fingers together, letting Alfie rest his head on Merv’s shoulder. <em>Have a little chutzpah and give ‘em hell. It’s what Bruce’d do. Don’t you let the Boss down. Don’t you let </em>me<em> down. I fucking raised you better than that, kiddo.</em></p>
<p>Malfoy dragged the cuff of his cardigan over each eye in two rough swipes.</p>
<p>“Shit,” he muttered. “<em>Shit</em>.”</p>
<p>He didn’t look at Neville. Some intolerable sliver of his teenage self jabbed its way to the surface and scorned him for allowing himself to show his tears to <em>anyone</em>, let alone <em>Longbottom</em>.</p>
<p><em>Fat little crybaby</em>.</p>
<p>But they were leaking out faster, now that they had finally been allowed to come. He could feel the tickling tumble and drip of them along the line of his lower lashes. He kept wiping them away fiercely with his sleeve, its cuff balled tight in his fist.</p>
<p>As if keeping them from making their journey down his cheeks might mean that he could pretend this wasn’t happening, not here, not now.</p>
<p><em>Christ</em>, he was exhausted; <em>Christ</em>, he had run dry of the strength to keep on his mask of proud untouchability; he felt like a rag wrung out, its loose threads being tugged roughly unraveled; he felt like a brown leaf shuddering against a gutter drain; he felt like broken glass, and like the bare palm pressed to the shards.</p>
<p>A few feet away, Mickey Burke had begun to approach the small gap in the curtain to see if there was anything he could do for his passengers. He stopped when he saw Draco Malfoy—<em>the</em> Draco Malfoy—scrubbing tears from his eyes, shoulders tense and trembling. Professor Longbottom was getting off the cot opposite, eyes filled with caring.</p>
<p>He backed away quietly from that scene.</p>
<p>Neville stepped across to Malfoy’s cot. “Come on, budge over,” he said softly, nudging Malfoy to scoot down and make space for Neville to sit beside him.</p>
<p>Neville put an arm around Malfoy’s shoulders, a little tentatively at first, but then he felt the tension in Malfoy’s shoulders unwind just a little, as his fingers began to uncurl from their clenched fists.</p>
<p>“I don’t deserve this,” Malfoy whispered, so quiet that Neville almost missed it under the hum and creak of the bus.</p>
<p>“No,” Neville agreed, “nay, you don’t deserve how they’ve treated you. No one would.”</p>
<p>Malfoy gave his head the smallest shake. “Not that,” he said. “<em>This</em>.” He reached a hesitant hand up to touch the tips of his graceful fingers, calloused from work and dry from cold, against the tips of Neville’s on the hand around his shoulder, also calloused, gentle and strong, with topsoil under the nails.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Neville said. “Oh, <em>nay</em>, Malfoy. <em>Everyone</em> deserves comfort.”</p>
<p>And that was it; that was all it took. Malfoy could feel the tears roll fast and free down his face now. He was very quiet; he didn’t cry aloud. But it came in a steady flow, the drops finding paths down the curve of each cheek to gather at the point of his chin and fall in thick splashes down onto his jeans, his cardigan, the back of his hand.</p>
<p>Mickey slipped back with a warm damp flannel and handed it wordlessly to his professor, who smiled and mouthed a <em>thank you</em> in return.</p>
<p>When Malfoy seemed to be done, Neville gave him the flannel and let him wipe his face clean of tears with the warm soft cloth.</p>
<p>“We’ve got a while to go yet ‘til Hogwarts,” Neville told him. “Go ahead and get some rest. You’ve nowt to worry about now that can’t wait ‘til later.” He picked up Malfoy’s hot water bottle and made it grow hot again with a wordless brush of his hand, and let Malfoy tuck himself up into the cot.</p>
<p>Malfoy let the exhaustion take him. He drifted off to the odd erratic sway of the Knight Bus, moving towards a place he had never thought would ever offer him sanctuary again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Control" by Poe.</p>
<p>I realized that my Neville in this story is the grown adult version of the same exact Neville I first pictured when I first read the first book like twenty years ago now.</p>
<p>Coming up: Harry actually reassembling his phone.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Nineteen</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Yeah, I'm a pacifist but I wanna set fire to</em><br/>
  <em>What makes you comfortable and give you what we got from you</em><br/>
  <em>Kick down your podium and never let things get this bad again </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Harry said for what felt like the fiftieth time in the last seven minutes. “I’m sorry, I <em>am</em>, I don’t know what else to say”—<em>It’s not my fault</em>—“I had no idea. I <em>couldn’t</em> have.”</p>
<p>He was sitting on his couch, forehead buried in his hand, fingers gripping deep into his hair. Not twenty minutes ago, he had put his mobile back together and hit the power button, fingers crossed, and breathed a sigh of relief when it turned back on.</p>
<p>That sense of relief disappeared when he saw the fourteen unheard voice messages.</p>
<p>“Harry, <em>stop</em>,” Merv was saying, “stop fucking apologizing, okay? Just tell me what the fuck is <em>going on</em>.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know yet,” Harry said. “I didn’t know <em>anything</em> was going on.” He disentangled his fingers from his hair to rub his eyes under his glasses. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Just a second, I think I can put some of this together.”</p>
<p>On his kitchen table was a note from Terry, received right before fixing his phone:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Whatever you hear, I took care of it already. Don’t worry. Don’t DO anything. Neville or me will be in touch later.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was in a rushed scrawl on the same stationery Terry had gotten a letter on when Harry had been to visit them, delivered by the same dignified owl.</p>
<p>“On Friday,” Harry said, “Alfie called after getting home from work and said he wouldn’t be in the next day—Saturday—and maybe Sunday either. And if you didn’t hear from him yesterday afternoon, you should call Gene and let him know he can’t pick up Gene’s nonexistent cat—And he gave you Gene’s number, only—”</p>
<p>“Only it was <em>your</em> number.”</p>
<p>“Right. Sorry.”</p>
<p>“Stop apologizing. So all that was to, I dunno, tip me off?” Merv asked, a frayed note in his voice. He sounded worn thin and ragged with worry. “But… But <em>why</em>? Was he being overheard? By <em>who</em>?”</p>
<p>A knot of dread formed in Harry’s chest as he pictured the scene Merv was unknowingly describing. “Did he say anything else? Not on that phone call, but anytime in… oh, the last week or so?” he asked, trying to feel out the edges of how much he might be able to say.</p>
<p>It would be one thing to reassure Merv that Malfoy was all right. It would be another entirely to share parts of Malfoy’s truth and past without his permission.</p>
<p>“You mean after <em>your</em> visit?”</p>
<p>“I… Er, yes, I s’pose that’s what I mean.”</p>
<p>With a loud sigh, Merv said, “Why don’t <em>you</em> just tell me what that was all about, Harry?”</p>
<p>Harry bit a thumbnail, thinking. “I asked him to sign some paperwork. He hadn’t done anything <em>wrong</em>; it was just… a legal technicality. Property ownership.”</p>
<p>“Except that it didn’t have to be <em>you</em> who did that. He said the reason <em>you</em> were the one to come was because it was <em>him</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“<em>Was</em> it?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Hm.” Merv was quiet for a moment. “So, this property thing. What, is Alfie going to inherit Manderly and leave us common folk behind?”</p>
<p>“<em>Doubtful</em>,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“What then? You come about some paperwork and then a week later he gets—what, <em>kidnapped</em>? And the two are <em>related</em>? What the <em>actual fuck </em>is happening, Harry?”</p>
<p>“Malfoy’s not <em>kidnapped</em>,” Harry shot back, unthinking, his voice rising half an octave in frantic stress. “Nothing so dire—or illegal—is happening here. He’s just—Hang on a sec. Let me think.” He had moved from his thumbnail to a hangnail on his index finger.</p>
<p>“What did you just call—?”</p>
<p>“Alfie. I said <em>Alfie</em>. Oh, bloody fucking <em>shit</em>, I am going to <em>kill</em> someone.” Harry got to his feet and began pacing his flat, across the living room and back again, over to the kitchen counter, across to the bedrooms. “I <em>think</em> I know what happened,” he said, “but I don’t want to say anything yet. But I <em>can</em> tell you that you don’t need to worry. I <em>know</em> that.” He took a deep breath and sat down at his kitchen table, picking up Terry’s note to read it yet again. “Listen, Merv, I reckon I know who can tell me what’s going on and where Mal—Alfie is. I just need to hear from Terry or—”</p>
<p>“<em>Terry</em>?” Merv broke in. “Not <em>Terry Boot</em>?”</p>
<p>“I… Er. What.” Of all the questions Harry was trying to prepare answers for, <em>that</em> wasn’t on the list. “Sorry, how do <em>you</em> know who Terry Boot is?”</p>
<p>“Alfie’s told us about him—”</p>
<p>“Them. Terry’s <em>them</em> now. Alfie didn’t know that.”</p>
<p>“—well, he just said they were kind of—like an ex, sort of, from back when they were teenagers.”</p>
<p>“Wait, <em>what</em>? They were <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>“Harry. <em>Focus</em>. What does Terry <em>now</em> have to do with all this <em>now</em>?”</p>
<p>“They work with me. In—In paperwork. They’re the one who gave me what I asked him to sign. I can’t tell you what’s happening—I don’t <em>know</em> yet—but I <em>do</em> know that Terry says everything is okay and not to worry.” Harry stopped himself from biting his thumbnail again, as though it wasn’t already bitten as short as it could be. “This might not mean anything to you, Merv—I understand if it doesn’t—but <em>one thing I know</em> is that Terry is taking care of—of Alfie. And if there’s only one thing I can promise, it’s if there’s anyone I can trust to take care of him for me, it’s Terry Boot.”</p>
<p>“For you,” Merv echoed, something soft and tentative like hope starting to unfurl in his voice. “Listen, Harry, I’ve got to—I’ve got to fucking open a fucking <em>diner</em>, like that matters at <em>all</em> right now, but can I call you back when I’ve got that started and have some breathing room to talk? Because I <em>really</em> want to talk some more. But just for the moment, please, for the love of God, Harry, <em>promise</em> me he’s okay.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Malfoy woke up to Neville gently shaking his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Come on, Malfoy,” he said softly. “Get up, we’re there.”</p>
<p>The bus had stopped at the far edge of Hogsmeade, near the footpath to Hogwarts. The driver was engrossed in a paperback crime novel, but Mickey was leaning against the dashboard, gazing through the windshield, one hand forming a visor over his squinting eyes, as though he could make himself see all the way to the castle if only he tried hard enough.</p>
<p>He straightened up when he heard them approaching.</p>
<p>“Professor Longbottom,” he said. “And Mister—Er, <em>sir</em>. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”</p>
<p>“Yes, thank you, Mickey,” Neville said. “You take care of yourself, all right?”</p>
<p>“’Course, Professor.” Mickey paused. “Can I ask—Annie ain’t still going with Geoff, is she? ‘Cause we all told her last year that he ain’t no good for her, and… And so I just wanted to make sure she’d realized.”</p>
<p>Neville paused, considering. “I really shouldn’t be gossiping about my students, you know,” he said. “But I don’t believe I’ve seen them together this year.” He looked at Mickey. “You could write them, you know. They’re your friends. You could even visit.”</p>
<p>Mickey frowned, thinking that over. He shook his head. “No,” he decided. “No, it’s different now.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded seriously, not pressing the boy any further. “If you ever change your mind,” he said, “you know how to reach us. And you’re always welcome.”</p>
<p>Neville and Malfoy walked along the footpath side by side in silence, listening to the crunch of their feet over dirt and dry leaves; the shudder of the wind through the high branches of the forest; and somewhere, the soft call and response of some mournful cooing bird.</p>
<p>“You live in the castle?” Malfoy asked finally.</p>
<p>He wasn’t enthused at the idea of having to walk into that place again. Maybe be <em>seen</em> by curious students. Or, worse, his former professors.</p>
<p>Neville shook his head. “Nay, I’ve a little place at the edge of the forest. It’s nothing grand, just a… Well, a sort of cabin of my own, just inside the treeline. It’s nice.”</p>
<p>With a short smirking laugh, Malfoy asked, “Are you saying you live in a cabin in the woods?”</p>
<p>“Aye, what of it?” Neville knit his brow, worried that Malfoy was making fun of him, but not being able to see how.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Malfoy said. “Except that in movies, when someone invites a person to their cabin in the woods, it usually indicates that either they plan to murder their guest, or they themself will be murdered forthwith. Usually by a big hulking man in a mask.”</p>
<p>Neville regarded Malfoy with a long look, equal parts bewildered and amused.</p>
<p>“What?” Malfoy asked.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Neville replied, smiling. “You’re just not the person I expected that sort of comment from.”</p>
<p>Malfoy arched an eyebrow. “What, do wizards <em>still</em> not watch movies?” he asked. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”</p>
<p>“Big hulking men in masks committing murders?” Neville suggested.</p>
<p>A small wry smile curved one corner of Malfoy’s mouth. “Hey, don’t knock ‘em ‘til you’ve seen one.”</p>
<p>Neville shot him that look again, amused but also puzzled by that amusement.</p>
<p>He didn’t quite know what to do with the person beside him.</p>
<p>He had steeled himself for Draco Malfoy, and the worst of what that might mean.</p>
<p>He hadn’t expected to find himself wanting to <em>like</em> the person he’d gotten in place of the scathing needling Slytherin he’d prepared himself for.</p>
<p>This Malfoy still bore many shades of that other person—a cool undercurrent of bone-deep arrogance, an unflappable bite of sarcasm, a leery guarded need to be more untouchable than anyone ever truly was, a complete failure to be even <em>half</em> as untouchable as that—but <em>this</em> Malfoy allowed himself to do things the old Malfoy would never have dreamed of.</p>
<p>This Malfoy apologized to Neville.</p>
<p>This Malfoy let Neville see him cry.</p>
<p>This Malfoy’s catty remarks were made <em>to</em> Neville and not <em>at</em> him.</p>
<p>They took the curve of the path to the point where the land officially became the grounds of Hogwarts. There wasn’t any particular marker indicating the spot, no signpost or cairn or plaque on the trunk of an alder, but Malfoy knew the spot right away. He remembered the feeling of stepping through that invisible barrier, the tingle over his skin as the air changed to the warded magic-thick confines of Hogwarts.</p>
<p>Neville crossed that line like nothing, just part of the everyday rhythm of his life now.</p>
<p>Malfoy hesitated. He could feel the crackle and buzz in the air in front of him. He’d been away from places thick with magic so long that this felt so much <em>stronger</em> than it once had.</p>
<p>Potter’s little warming charm had left a hum echoing over his skin for hours, where such a thing would have once been nothing to him.</p>
<p><em>This</em> was so much more than that.</p>
<p>Malfoy took a step forward and drew in a sharp breath. It was like stepping through a curtain of static electricity. It was like plunging face-first into a pool of ice water that shocked your body by being warm instead. It was like an old song he used to know playing loud enough to buzz his limbs.</p>
<p>He wished he could say something that didn’t sound stupid or obvious.</p>
<p><em>I’m at Hogwarts</em>, he felt himself announce inside, hushed and awed.</p>
<p>He wrapped his arms around himself and said nothing.</p>
<p>Neville had stopped to watch him. When Malfoy crossed, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, a relieved smile crossing over his face.</p>
<p>Malfoy shot him a questioning look.</p>
<p>“I was worried for a moment, when you stopped walking,” Neville explained. “I’d asked Flitwick afore leaving for London to make sure the old ward from the end of the war was down.” He shrugged with a bit of a sheepish wince. “A bit like locking the barn after the horse’s bolted, it was. But there’s even less use for a charm like <em>that</em> now than when it was put up.”</p>
<p>Malfoy could piece together what Neville was suggesting, but had the petty impulse to ask Neville to elaborate, pressing him in tones of chilly spite: <em>Tell me, Longbottom, what Hogwarts was warded against, that it wouldn’t have let me in.</em></p>
<p>But he was too tired and wrung out for that kind of masochistic spite; he’d used all <em>that</em> up in those long hours with Abernathy.</p>
<p>So he just swept a weary arm out at Neville and the trail ahead, gesturing him to lead on.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, they reached a rise and bend in the path, taking them out of the trees and out to the first view of the lawn sloping upwards, and the lake, and rising above it all, the castle itself.</p>
<p>The grass had that dull grayish tone it took in winter months and the sky echoed that shade with its own pale roiling gray of clouds not quite close enough to promise snow. It was cold. There were almost no students outdoors, save for a trio of distant figures in winter cloaks, half-running arm in arm to the owlery beyond the castle. Their laughter was loud enough to carry all the way down over the lawn and lake to where Malfoy stood a step behind Neville, reaching them as faint as the chime of faraway bells.</p>
<p>“It’s nothing like it was the last time I was here,” Malfoy said. Then: “It’s exactly like I remember it.”</p>
<p>Neville turned back to look at him. “The last time you were here,” he said, inviting Malfoy to continue without pressing.</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> know. May, almost ten years ago now.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded, eyes round with compassion. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “You’re not the only one who hasn’t been back since <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy shot him a sharp look. “I don’t feel a need to discuss it,” he said loftily. “So let’s just continue on to your <em>cabin in the woods</em>, shall we? Which way is it? <em>Please</em> don’t tell me it’s right beside Hagrid’s.”</p>
<p>“You don’t want to see him.”</p>
<p>“No. I don’t want to see <em>anyone</em>; he’s not special in that regard. But his house always smelled of fire and meat, and I’d prefer not to be staying downwind of <em>that</em> while I’m stuck here.”</p>
<p>Neville rolled his eyes at that comment, for how much he could hear in it an echo of Malfoy’s old spoiled petulance. “I’m down the other side,” he said. “Past the greenhouses, around the last curve of trees.”</p>
<p>Malfoy followed Neville along the treeline away from the castle, secretly glad not to have to look at it anymore unless he chose to glance back over his shoulder.</p>
<p>He didn’t.</p>
<p>The greenhouses looked the same as he remembered, clustered together. He couldn’t recall where the glass was broken the last time he’d seen them. He couldn’t tell the difference between the old panels and the new, not at a glance, and he didn’t want to look closer to search out signs of where the panes had shattered and the framework snapped.</p>
<p>They still emanated that familiar green growing warmth he had half-forgotten. The grass around the edges of the buildings was summer-fresh compared to the dormant winter of the rest of the grounds.</p>
<p>“I had to cancel my classes for the afternoon,” Neville commented. “So I’ve probably got to stop in later on tonight and check in on a few things.”</p>
<p><em>Can I come?</em> Malfoy wanted to ask.</p>
<p>“Far be it from me to stop you,” he said instead.</p>
<p>They moved on down around the last curve of trees, away from the lake and the castle, down where the ground grew uneven and spotted with large gray rocks, where it reminded Malfoy of the low hills on the moor beyond the Malfoy Manor.</p>
<p>He wondered if it reminded Neville of the Yorkshire moors he had grown up in.</p>
<p>He didn’t ask.</p>
<p>Then through the trees was the cabin, a pleasant simple thing made of broad wood beams the color of burnt caramel, sturdy and unpretentious. A wreath of juniper bows hung on the bright red door, and a wisp of smoke curled up from a squat stone chimney to the dark canopy of bare trees. The windows bore boxes filled with blooming hellebore and yellow monkshood, and a sprawling bed of heather surrounded the home.</p>
<p>Neville opened the door.</p>
<p>“You leave your house unlocked?” Malfoy asked, following him in.</p>
<p>“Nay, it’s got a ward on it to recognize me and whoever else I want it to.” He tossed Malfoy a self-deprecating smile. “I lose keys,” he added as an explanation.</p>
<p>They were in the main room, a bright cozy combination of a sitting room and kitchen all in one. The righthand side had everything kitchen: the stove, the cream-colored icebox, a big farmhouse sink, cabinetry, a generous well-stocked pantry, a terracotta container holding a thriving herb garden.</p>
<p>In the middle was a big heavy wooden table, the kind that could double as counter space, the kind of table Merv had once waxed poetic about someday having in his own home kitchen, if only they had the space. <em>Butcher block</em>, Malfoy recalled.</p>
<p>And then the room shifted to a wide couch upholstered in bright stripes; a clustered trio of large squashy round ottomans, vibrantly embroidered; and a pair of armchairs. One was winged and patterned with a faintly Victorian floral. The other was yellow corduroy. It was quite broad and seemed—if possible—even more comfortably made than the fat striped couch.</p>
<p>All of these were arranged around the fireplace, which dominated the left wall. For a moment, Malfoy thought it odd how <em>big</em> it was for a small cabin, forgetting for a moment that this fireplace was in a <em>wizard’s</em> house, and therefore its owner would want it to accommodate him comfortably when he entered and exited through it.</p>
<p>The walls and ceilings were all painted with flowers and plants, clearly done by several different hands with vast variations in talent. The majority of the ceiling, however, was painted by someone with a very good, if slightly surreal, eye for composition.</p>
<p>Neville followed Malfoy’s gaze up to the swirling ring of thistle above their heads.</p>
<p>“Luna,” he said.</p>
<p>Looking around at Neville’s home, Malfoy suddenly hoped Neville would like his own little house in Maine, were Neville ever to see it.</p>
<p>It was a strange feeling, this craving for Neville’s approval, as if he hadn’t once spent so much time convincing Neville how little his opinions mattered.</p>
<p>Now, he wished he felt able to say, <em>I tried to make myself a home like yours, small and cozy and safe, and filled with things I like</em>.</p>
<p>“Here,” Neville was saying, “take off your coat, get comfortable.”</p>
<p>As Malfoy shrugged off his winter coat, Neville went on, “You can hang it on the rack over there if you like, or have it in your room—Come on, let me show you. I’ve a guest room you can stay in. It’s not much, maybe, but it’s a far sight better than a holding cell.”</p>
<p>Malfoy hung his coat on the rack and followed Neville to the little hallway with three doors.</p>
<p>“My room,” Neville said, indicating the one straight ahead. “The bath.” He gestured to the right. “And this’ll be yours, long as you’re here.” He opened the door on the left.</p>
<p>Neville wasn’t wrong about it being small, but Malfoy was used to small. His own room back home was almost entirely occupied by the bed and dresser alone.</p>
<p>This room held a double bed with a green Durham quilt beside a chest of drawers with a little brass lamp on top, next to a potted plant with faintly luminous leaves. The walls were painted a cheerful celadon, and the large window had yellow floral curtains.</p>
<p>“I know there isn’t much space to move around,” Neville said apologetically.</p>
<p>Malfoy shook his head. “I don’t mind,” he said. “You should see my house. The kitchen’s so small you can’t fit two people without them being right on top of—Well. I mean to say, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. This is perfect.”</p>
<p>Neville smiled. “Look, why don’t you take a bath, relax. I’ll get in touch with Terry and Harry and let them know you’re here safe, and you <em>really</em> ought to have a good night’s rest before having to start dealing with all <em>that</em> again.” He waved a hand towards what Malfoy supposed was London and the Auror Department, making a face at how distasteful he found the whole situation. “I can lend you some pajamas, while we get your clothes clean.”</p>
<p>Malfoy hesitated, wanting to thank Neville for the consideration. But also wanting to find a tactful way to point out the slight hitch in that offer, without feeling like he was being rude. Especially given his history of nasty comments to Neville about exactly this sort of thing.</p>
<p>Neville saw that hesitation, marked by a slight furrow gathering across Malfoy’s expressive brows. “I’ve a set I’ve never worn,” he elaborated. “Gran gave them to me for Christmas, oh, almost six years back now. It was back in my Auror days, and they were a touch, ah, <em>optimistic</em> even then.” He studied Malfoy for a moment, taking his measure in a non-judgmental, matter-of-fact way. “I think they should be about right for you. They’re quite nice.”</p>
<p>Malfoy looked back at Neville, arch and incredulous. “You’re saying you’ve held onto a pair of pajamas you can’t wear for six <em>years</em>?”</p>
<p>“Aye, what of it?”</p>
<p>Malfoy shrugged and waved a languid hand. “Oh, nothing. It just seems like the sort of self-punishing gesture that’s far more something <em>I’d</em> be prone to do than <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Neville said, blinking. “Ah, nay, that’s not it—It’s that it was the last Christmas I had with Gran afore she passed, and I felt right guilty at the idea of getting <em>rid</em> of her gift, so I just… held onto ‘em and then forgot I even had ‘em ‘til just now.”</p>
<p>“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. About your grandmother, I mean.” Malfoy cleared his throat, feeling awkward and ill-suited to gestures of sympathy.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Neville said anyway, as graciously as if Malfoy actually sounded as sincere as he wanted to. “I’ll go find them, so you can get a bath and into something warm and clean.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Percy Apparated from his office to his living room the moment the clock clicked to from four fifty-nine to five o’clock. He’d found himself unable to concentrate on the long parade of little routine duties all day. Usually, he enjoyed those things; they made him feel useful and efficient; they reassured him he was running the Department of Magical Transportation smoothly.</p>
<p>Today they felt meaningless. Today, the only thing that mattered was one specific interdepartmental memo he’d sent first thing, which had gone unanswered.</p>
<p>He set his briefcase on the countertop of his kitchen island, gray speckled granite polished until it gleamed like glass. With a frustrated yank, he pulled his tie loose from his neck and tossed it on top.</p>
<p>And turned to see Terry crosslegged in the center of his couch.</p>
<p>“Erm,” he said, thrown off by the unexpected sight. “What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>Terry gave him an irritated look. “You’re home earlier than usual.”</p>
<p>“But I <em>live</em> here,” Percy reminded him. “<em>You</em>, however—”</p>
<p>“Don’t live here,” Terry finished for him. “I know I don’t. I didn’t want to have to…” They gestured with a frustrated sweep of their hand, indicating the whole general presence of Percy in his own home. “I figured I’d be out before you got home.”</p>
<p>“Why? What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Expecting a call,” Terry said. “Had to borrow your fireplace, didn’t I, ‘cause Knockturn Alley’s still off Floo, as if there ain’t nobody in the world I can think of what might be able to fucking <em>do</em> something about that—”</p>
<p>“There’s <em>legislation</em>,” Percy cut in. “There’s an entire approval process that’s utterly out of my hands, and you <em>know</em> that. We’ve had this disagreement often enough you ought to be able to quote the whole forty-eight steps of mandatory legal proceedings back to me from memory by now.”</p>
<p>“Thirty-six.”</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>“There are thirty-six steps if anyone wants to do it efficiently,” Terry told him. “There are forty-eight if no one cares whether it ever happens at all.”</p>
<p>Percy’s face got that pompous closed-off look it got whenever he felt angry but didn’t want to. “So you’re here because you’re expecting a call,” he said, stiffly changing the subject before this could become an argument again.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry,” Terry said. “He don’t know it’s <em>your</em> flat. I just gave him the address.”</p>
<p>“He who?”</p>
<p>“Neville,” Terry replied. “Longbottom.” They hesitated. “Thank you for the memo about the Portkey request.” With a sigh, they pulled off the already loosened necktie they wore and unbuttoned the top two buttons of their shirt. “It tipped me off enough to get the info I needed. Malfoy was in Auror custody.”</p>
<p>Percy’s brow furrowed, concern eclipsing frustration. He moved to sit on the chaise that formed an L at the end of his couch, wanting to sit closer but not knowing if he was forgiven enough yet. “Malfoy was <em>arrested</em>?”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “I said he was brought in. Didn’t say he was <em>charged</em> with nothing.” They studied Percy before flopping back into the couch with a long defeated sigh. “You know,” they went on, “I’m trying to thank you for what you did <em>today</em>, without making like I <em>forgive</em> you yesterday. Ain’t an easy balance to strike.”</p>
<p>Percy was quiet a moment before asking carefully, “Shall we talk about it then? Yesterday, I mean. I have to admit, I’m still a bit at a loss at what went wrong. I’m not saying I don’t regret a few of the things I might have said, but…” He spread his hands in a gesture both of apology and self-absolution that Terry resented wholeheartedly.</p>
<p>Terry flicked their fringe from their eyes and shook their head. “Don’t want to get into a whole <em>thing</em>, not when I’m expecting a call any minute now.”</p>
<p>“Right. About that,” Percy said. “I follow that Malfoy was brought into custody without arrest, but where does <em>Neville</em> come into this?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Terry said. “Well, I were advised I oughtn’t try nothing meself, on account of me being <em>what I am</em>”—they shot Percy a knowing look, silently asking him to refer back to parts of yesterday’s disagreement—“and what I am being nothing nobody’s gonna listen to, not if I get involved where I ain’t wanted or welcome. Make everything bloody <em>worse</em> is what <em>I’d</em> do. But a Hogwarts professor gets <em>respect</em>. A Hogwarts professor with a good upright career as an Auror before that. A Hogwarts professor, a former Auror, a well-respected member of the community, a bleedin’ <em>war hero</em>.”</p>
<p>“And what, precisely, is this professor-<em>cum</em>-war-hero supposed to be doing?”</p>
<p>“He’s supposed to be reclaiming Malfoy and taking him back to stay with him at Hogwarts.”</p>
<p>Percy considered that for a long moment before fixing his dark brown eyes on Terry. “Would Malfoy be <em>able</em> to return to Hogwarts?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” Terry asked carefully. Not for the first time, they wished the man they’d made the mistake of falling for wasn’t too damned clever in his own right too damned much of the time.</p>
<p>“You <em>know</em> what I mean,” Percy told them. “After the Battle of Hogwarts, when they did what they likely should have done much sooner—”</p>
<p>“Flitwick,” Percy said. “It was Flitwick what done it. Bloody brilliant geezer, sharp as nails and twice as handy.”</p>
<p>“—and sealed off Hogwarts from Death Eaters.”</p>
<p>“Stop anyone what’s got the Dark Mark right at the perimeter,” Terry agreed. “Which they hadn’t done before ‘cause of—”</p>
<p>“Snape, yes.” Percy made a politely disdainful face at that. “But after the battle, they wanted to protect the students from the last of the Death Eaters as they were being tracked down, and so on and so forth.” He made a circular motion with his hand to imply the rest of the events at the end of the war. “But therein lies my question: <em>Would</em> Malfoy be able to return now? To my knowledge, he’s the first to try. I don’t imagine there’s much point in leaving that charm up, since nobody was attempting to breach the property, but at the same time, I don’t imagine there’s much point in taking it <em>down</em>, because nobody it restricts has required access.”</p>
<p>“Neville said he’d make sure Malfoy could get in before he came,” Terry said. “He said he’d get Flitwick to take it down if needed. ‘Cause like you said, ain’t like they need to worry about Death Eaters <em>now</em>.”</p>
<p>“Precisely,” Percy said. “That’s what I’m asking you. Is <em>this</em> why you called Neville and proposed this solution?”</p>
<p>Terry narrowed their eyes. “Not sure if I’m interested to hear where you’re taking this,” they said. “It’s for Malfoy, for doing right by him and getting him out of the lions’ den while we figure out an actual plan.”</p>
<p>“All for the good of Malfoy,” Percy remarked, his voice even but pointed, knowing full well Terry could read meaning in all the little subtleties people betray outside the words themselves.</p>
<p>“I’m no saint,” Terry replied. “Never claimed to be. And no amount of disapproval’s ever stood a chance of making me one. You more’n <em>anyone</em> ought to have cottoned on to <em>that</em> by now.” They studied Percy, all at once shrewd and sympathetic. “You <em>know</em> that. That’s what all this—all yesterday, all the times we danced around what we finally <em>said</em> yesterday… You <em>know</em> I’m right about not being fit for what you need.”</p>
<p>“I thought you didn’t want to talk about this now.”</p>
<p>“I don’t,” Terry said. “Go on, you’d best go somewhere else. It wouldn’t do for Neville to see you, would it.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Neville’s tub was large and deep with brass feet like a hippogriff. Beside it was a little shelf of soaps and shampoo, and a canning jar with half a dozen round chalky capsules, each about the size of a walnut. Malfoy knew they dissolved in bathwater to keep it hot; his mother used to have them by her bath. Hers looked like a glass container of macarons, ordered special from a shop she knew in Paris. He had never been quite sure what their scent was supposed to be. They just smelled <em>pink</em>. But it lingered on his mother’s skin, so that was what the unnamable scent was more than anything to him: his mother.</p>
<p>Neville’s had the slight unevenness of being homemade and were the soft gray-green of a lamb’s ear plant. When Malfoy dropped one in the hot water, it filled the steam with the smell of sage and chamomile and another plant Malfoy couldn’t quite place, though he remembered smelling it in the greenhouses years ago.</p>
<p>After soaking for probably far too long in a deep tub that never grew cold, he dried himself with a big soft towel and shaved in the mirror above the sink.</p>
<p>Which just reminded him of Potter last Sunday morning, with a couple days’ growth coming in over that strong beautiful jawline, dark and coarse and lovely and Malfoy had a stupid mad impulse to lick it, to feel it rasp against his bare skin.</p>
<p>He had thought of that more than once in the last week, as if he needed to add another feature to the list of parts of Harry Potter he wanted in vain to be allowed to touch.</p>
<p>Malfoy glared at his own reflection.</p>
<p>
  <em>Keep it together. You’re not some idiot schoolboy with a crush anymore.</em>
</p>
<p>Neville hadn’t been wrong in his assessment; the pajamas almost fit right. They were warm and soft, made of dark blue flannel patterned with small green birds and edged in matching green satin piping.</p>
<p>Malfoy reemerged feeling almost <em>okay</em> for the first time since leaving Maine.</p>
<p>Neville was at the butcher block table, slicing a tomato for two sandwiches he had almost finished constructing. “Feel better?” he asked.</p>
<p>Malfoy nodded and took a seat across from him. “I’d say that was the highlight of the last three days, but I suppose the bar is set fairly low.”</p>
<p>Neville had taken off the sweater vest and rolled his shirtsleeves up his forearms, exposing the bottom of an elaborate full-sleeve botanical tattoo on his right arm. It was clearly still a work in progress, a few sections still empty uncolored linework. Malfoy recognized heather, nettle, and primrose, but wasn’t sure of the other leaves and flowers. He stared in fascination at the idea of <em>Neville Longbottom</em> having <em>tattoos</em>, until—</p>
<p>“Hang on,” he said, “are they <em>moving</em>?”</p>
<p>Neville looked up from the tomato. “They who?” he asked, puzzled, then followed Malfoy’s gaze. “Oh! Aye.” He beamed and pushed up his sleeve as much as he could, getting it up to the elbow, and leaned forward to show Malfoy across the table. “My artist is brilliant, isn’t she? She’s a witch with a shop down in Bristol, and she’s a right genius—You should see the one she did on Harry.”</p>
<p>Malfoy dragged his gaze away from the way the leaves and petals stirred gently as if in a mild summer breeze and said, “Harry? No, the Weasley twin did that.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, not the little one on his hand. The other one.” Neville cut another slice of tomato. “He told you about that one George did?”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s right there on his hand,” Malfoy pointed out. “It’s hardly a secret.”</p>
<p>After a moment’s consideration, Neville shrugged and nodded as if to concede the point, then began adding the tomato slices to the sandwiches.</p>
<p>“How do you find tomatoes like that in the middle of <em>winter</em>? In <em>Scotland</em>?” Malfoy asked.</p>
<p>It was a fat scarlet meaty thing, dripping juice and rivaling anything found in a late summer farmer’s market back home.</p>
<p>“Malfoy,” Neville said, pushing one of the plates across the table to him, “I’m a <em>wizard</em> with <em>greenhouses</em>.”</p>
<p>He poured two glasses of cold rich milk from the icebox to go with their supper and sat down across from Malfoy.</p>
<p>The sandwiches were on thick brown bread, buttered and toasted. Inside was cheddar cheese, thin slices of tart green apple, a couple of rashers fried up, leftover roast chicken, sweet pickle, good dark grainy mustard, and, of course, generous slices of that beautiful tomato.</p>
<p>Neville glanced at Malfoy’s pajamas. “They look well on you,” he remarked.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Malfoy replied. Then, in a daring uneasy attempt at something like a joke, he added, “And here I thought I wouldn’t make the Aurors’ enlistment standards now.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, you wouldn’t,” Neville said, a bit sharper than he meant to. He shot Malfoy an apologetic look. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound cross with <em>you</em>.” He pushed a slice of tomato back into place in his sandwich. “It was just—I wouldn’t’ve either. I <em>shouldn’t</em> have. But they were all too eager to make exceptions and bend rules to pin badges on their trio of shiny new war heroes as fast as they could, before the headlines faded too far from folks’ minds. Not there’s any chance of <em>that</em> ever happening, it seems.” He sighed. “I did my best, you know. I tried so hard for years, but… Wasn’t made for it. Wasn’t made for any of it. Never should have tried to fit into the mold of that job, in any sense, figurative or—or literal.”</p>
<p>“Wow, not bitter at all, are you?” Malfoy asked, and then, less sardonically, “I shouldn’t have made that joke. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>With a slightly puzzled look, Neville said, “Don’t be.” He took a bite of his sandwich and smiled a little, in a sweet conspiratorial way as if he saw in Malfoy someone who might understand something about him now. “Anyroad, it’s not worth it, is it, giving up carbs for seven years for a job you don’t even believe in.”</p>
<p>“Try from the ages of ten to twenty-three.” A slight smirk twitched the corner of Malfoy’s lips. “I knew you loved your old job from how you tore Abernathy to shreds earlier, but I had no idea you were <em>this</em> big a fan.”</p>
<p>Neville shrugged. “It was the wrong job for me. But when you’re eighteen and fresh off a battlefield and your two best friends want all three of you to sign on together, do the right thing, keep fighting evil… Thing was, I was never a soldier. Not like them, who’d been doing it for years already. Harry doesn’t realize, but he’s basically had the job since the first time he was handed a wand. What else was he ever going to want to be <em>but</em> that?”</p>
<p>“But he doesn’t want that,” Malfoy said. “Not anymore.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Neville raised his eyebrows. “<em>That</em> explains a lot about everything.” He was quiet a moment, taking a bite of his sandwich, then said, “I talked to them both when you were in the bath. They know you’re here now, and they know what—what McLaggen did with the Head Auror’s blessing.”</p>
<p>Malfoy wanted to know what undiplomatic phrasing Neville had used with his own friends, but didn’t ask.</p>
<p>Neville was being kind and hospitable, yes, but he was still keeping a bit of safe distance up between them, and it wasn’t Malfoy’s right to breach that yet.</p>
<p>“<em>And</em>?” Malfoy prompted.</p>
<p>“And I told them not to show up tonight,” Neville said. “You need to rest, they need to regroup and strategize—Well, Terry does, anyway. And I <em>really</em> need to grade about a thousand quizzes. But they’ll be here tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“But what did <em>Potter</em> say?” Malfoy asked. “Is <em>he</em> not planning to strategize?”</p>
<p>Neville rolled his eyes a little at that involuntarily, though it didn’t seem directed at Malfoy. “Aye, of <em>course</em> he is, but of the two of ‘em, unless Harry decides to involve Hermione or Ron, my money’s on Terry to come up with the solution that’s a little less…” Neville waved a hand as he tried to find a polite way to end that sentence. “A little less storm-the-gates than Harry tends toward.”</p>
<p>Malfoy couldn’t quite argue the logic there. “She <em>is</em> involved, though,” he said. “Granger, I mean. Potter got the assignment from her.”</p>
<p>Relief spread over Neville’s face when he heard that. “Thank Hecate for <em>that</em>,” he replied. “You didn’t mention <em>that</em> key bit on the bus. We may have a hope after all, then.”</p>
<p>“Don’t go sounding so optimistic about my chances here,” Malfoy said drily.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s a bit of a sticky spot, isn’t it,” Neville pointed out with an apologetic shrug. “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re the favorite to win.”</p>
<p>“But that’s your thing, if I recall. You lot never seemed to mind being an underdog story back when I used to know you. Potter, especially.” He paused. “Not that I’m trying to rope him into caring too much. He’s already gotten himself suspended over me, so I understand if he doesn’t want to dedicate himself to this <em>particular</em> hopeless cause any farther than he already has.”</p>
<p>Neville regarded Malfoy with a bemused look. “Honestly, Malfoy, I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about,” he said. “Not if the argument we had over him not getting to come <em>right over right away</em> was anything to go by. I’m surprised you didn’t hear. It got to be quite a loud phone call—”</p>
<p>“<em>Phone</em> call?” Malfoy cut in. “You have a <em>phone</em>?”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Neville said. “I’m afraid I was pretty insistent on it when I took the post. With all had gone down back when we were at school, I knew I wouldn’t be comfortable with us not having <em>some</em> way for Muggle-born students to get ahold of family in an emergency. Thankfully it’s not been needed, but—But that’s why I’m all the way down here, in part. The connection needed to be as far from the castle as we could get. So here I am, on my own bit of earth, where I get to be owner of the only tele—” His eyes went wide. “<em>Oh</em>. Oh, stupid of me. I should have thought. Do you want to make a call?”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Malfoy blinked. He hadn’t imagined being given that opportunity, and now was at a loss for what he would even <em>say</em> if he called. “I hadn’t… I don’t know. I probably should let them know I’m all right, shouldn’t I.”</p>
<p>“Harry said he’s been on the phone with both Tony and… Marv?”</p>
<p>“Merv.”</p>
<p>“Aye, that’s the one. Anyroad, he’d had two phone calls with them so far, and was going to call again and tell them you were here safe with me, but tired, and he would be in touch for you as much as he needs to.” Neville gave Malfoy a small gentle smile. “So if you aren’t up for all that until you’ve had a good night’s sleep and a chance to regroup with the others, it’ll be all right. They know you’re safe. And Harry will make sure they know you’re in good hands.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Hermione was late.</p>
<p>She spent Tuesday morning caught in an interminable meeting with the Magical Maintenance Department, pretending to care about the negotiations on the exact proper amount of rainfall allowed in the Ministry complex.</p>
<p>She knew it was part of her job to take meetings like that, to show that the Minister’s office was interested and involved without actually wasting Shacklebolt’s time on triviality like: <em>How many spring showers should we plan for, and for what duration?</em></p>
<p>It was part of her job so she accepted that, but that didn’t mean she was particularly <em>enthusiastic</em>, especially not now, when a last-minute request for a lunch meeting promised much more interesting news.</p>
<p>Terry was at the back table of their café, having already picked up their usual sandwich orders.</p>
<p>Hermione barely took off her coat before Terry said, without greeting or preamble, “Want to hear something fun?”</p>
<p>Sitting down, she shot them a wary look. “I get the feeling I’m not going to find this <em>fun</em>,” she replied, before casting a surreptitious privacy charm around their table. Nothing big enough to risk notice, just a little glamour to make their conversation sound like idle indistinct chatter to the casual listener.</p>
<p>She could tell already from the sharp glint in Terry’s eyes that this meeting could use the extra precaution.</p>
<p>“No, you won’t,” Terry agreed, flipping the top slice of bread back from their sandwich casually, picking off the tomato slices. “Guess who spent the weekend in Auror custody.”</p>
<p>Hermione pulled the Swiss cheese from her own turkey sandwich and passed it to them, taking their tomatoes. Her eyebrows were raised, but she wasn’t surprised. “If I say Draco Malfoy, what do I win?”</p>
<p>“The satisfaction of knowing you’re still a step ahead of me illustrious employers.”</p>
<p>“What a terrible prize.”</p>
<p>“Okay, that, and lunch is on me.” Terry took a bite of their sandwich. “I took care of it yesterday. Our favorite Slytherin’s currently shacked up with our favorite professor.” They made a face. “No, shouldn’t’ve phrased it like that.”</p>
<p>Hermione held up a finger. “All right, one: <em>Your</em> favorite Slytherin maybe. Jury’s still out for <em>me</em>. And two”—she held up a second finger—“what do you mean <em>yesterday?</em> Why am I only just finding out about this <em>now?</em>”</p>
<p>“One: You tell me who’s his competition for the title. Two: I ain’t Superman here. I can only do <em>so</em> much in a day on me own.”</p>
<p>Hermione thought a moment. “One: Millicent Bulstrode. Two: Tell me what you did.”</p>
<p>“Fair ‘nough,” Terry said. And then proceeded to give Hermione a thorough summary of their Monday, all the pertinent facts lined up as best they could organize them, knowing that Hermione could make order out of anything they couldn’t.</p>
<p>She didn’t ask them who their connection in Magical Transportation was. She never had. Terry was fairly positive she’d pieced it together, being as sharp as she was, but nobody could accuse them of letting it slip.</p>
<p>When they got to the part where they called in a favor to Neville Longbottom, she let out a low quiet whistle that was closer to a hiss of air. “Don’t imagine the Aurors liked <em>that</em> much, did they?” she said.</p>
<p>“They ought to thank me,” Terry replied. “If I <em>really</em> wanted to sic an ex-Auror with a grudge on them, I could’ve called up your boyfriend. Just didn’t figure a joke shop had the same authoritative clout as the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”</p>
<p>“Plus we didn’t need to add in the complication of Ron socking McLaggen,” she added.</p>
<p>“I’d pay money to see that, though.”</p>
<p>Hermione sighed. “So would I.” She picked at the crisps on the plate beside her sandwich, and then asked, “How did that go then? Neville got him out, either way, I’m assuming.”</p>
<p>“Dunno how it went,” Terry admitted. “I were pretty decidedly <em>nowhere in the vicinity</em> when Neville showed up to DMLE holding. The last thing I need’s someone thinking <em>I </em>had anything to do with it.”</p>
<p>“Someone <em>knows</em> you had <em>everything</em> to do with it,” Hermione reminded them.</p>
<p>“Danila?” Terry waved that away. “Fucker practically <em>told</em> me to do it. If he’s got half a shred of decency or self-preservation, he’ll lie low and pretend he’d nothing to do with it.” They considered. “Of course, maybe he ain’t got <em>that</em> much decency. He’s an Auror, after all.”</p>
<p>“You said he was one of the better ones.”</p>
<p>Terry let out a short laugh, still bitter from Friday. “<em>Better</em>? Maybe. But ain’t no such thing as a <em>good</em> Auror, love.” Catching the look on her face, they added before she could speak, “That includes Harry, yes.”</p>
<p>“Now wait a second,” she protested. “That’s not fair. Harry’s one of the best people I’ve <em>ever</em>—”</p>
<p>“Oh, sure. He may be a good <em>person</em>. But that’s not the same thing, is it. He ain’t a good <em>Auror</em>.” Terry sighed. “Look, I don’t want to get into all that, not today, not if I don’t have to. But you got to remember, Harry Potter helped them shut down Knockturn Alley. Harry Potter’s the reason Graham Pritchard’s spending the better part of his twenties in prison. Harry Potter was sent on <em>how</em> many assignments with Cormac fucking McLaggen as his partner and he <em>went</em>. No, Harry ain’t corrupt. He don’t take bribes or rough folks up or treat anyone cruel, but he still does his job. And there ain’t no way I’ve seen to do <em>those </em>things and be a <em>good</em> Auror. You know what the best Aurors do?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Sell trick sweets and teach kids about plants.”</p>
<p>Hemione set her sandwich down. “That’s all very well and good, Terry,” she said. “That’s noble and I admire your idealism—you <em>know</em> I do—but we <em>both</em> know this is the system we’ve got and we’ve got to make it work right <em>now</em>. You can’t just toss the present aside because it’s not yet the future you’re hoping for. That’s the whole bloody <em>point</em> of everything I’m doing, and if you’re suggesting it doesn’t <em>mean</em> anything—”</p>
<p>“I’m <em>not</em>. I’m just suggesting that some parts of the <em>system we’ve got</em> are more fucked than others, and just because I’m fucking stuck <em>inside</em> it for the present doesn’t mean I need to sit here and pretend I’m not… I dunno. Helping you repair the walls of a house whose foundation is crumbling.”</p>
<p>“Terry, that’s not fair and you know it.” Hermione regarded them for a long moment, her eyes narrowed slightly with an expression Terry found far too shrewd and incisive for their comfort. “Where’s this coming from? Draco Malfoy?”</p>
<p>“And what if it was?”</p>
<p>“Then you’re more of a bleeding heart for him than you’d led me to believe, when you brought me the problem of his estate. You gave the impression it got under your skin how <em>this</em> was the best bet in getting something done right by the Aurors.”</p>
<p>She took another bite of her sandwich and didn’t speak for almost a half a minute.</p>
<p>Terry didn’t say anything either. They could tell she was putting together her next point.</p>
<p>“I’m not saying it’s <em>right</em> to have dragged him here and put him in holding,” she continued, “because it absolutely <em>isn’t</em>, but we agreed that was a possible outcome if Harry didn’t manage to get him to sign—and we agreed if that happened, we’d regroup and come up with a plan. And yet here you are, having already taken action without having spoken to anyone but Neville, who’s a complete outside party.”</p>
<p>“He was very amenable to helping.”</p>
<p>“Yes, well. Speaking of a bleeding heart with a chip on his shoulder.” Hermione shook her head with an expression that somehow managed to be both resigned and admiring. “I can’t say I’m remotely surprised to hear he agreed to help, for as little love was lost between him and Malfoy all through school.”</p>
<p>“I’m supposed to go for dinner after work today. Suppose I’ll see if Neville’s supernatural patience finally wore thin and he’s strangled Malfoy.”</p>
<p>“Harry says he’s changed.” She put one crust-end of her sandwich on the far edge of her plate. “Do me a favor when you go over, would you?”</p>
<p>“Anything.”</p>
<p>“Don’t give them a plan yet. We don’t have one. Keep your mouth shut and actually <em>wait</em> for me to consult with you this time, all right? I’ve got a few things I’m looking at. You didn’t answer my question, you know.”</p>
<p>One thing they each enjoyed about the other’s company was the way both of them accepted the other’s sudden subject changes as they came, switching from track to track, connecting dots from A to B to X.</p>
<p>“Where’s this coming from?” they said.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said. “That question.”</p>
<p>“What, me oft-stated dislike for officers of the law?” Terry put on a light voice. “Let’s see, it all began on November 28th, 1979, when a baby was born to Uriah Boot and Theresa Borg—”</p>
<p>“Knock it off, you know what I meant.”</p>
<p>“I know, I know: Why did I get Malfoy out of holding as soon as I knew he was there, instead of following the plan we’d had for if that happened? <em>Because</em>.” Terry frowned, trying to find a way to phrase their answer that didn’t give away someone else’s private business without his say-so. “Because of Harry. Because it’s better I did it the way I did, than have him find out Malfoy was being held at the DMLE.”</p>
<p>“You told him to sit tight. <em>I </em>told him to sit tight. He <em>promised</em>.”</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t have mattered. Our boy would have stormed the gates. He would have scaled the castle wall for—” <em>For his maiden fair</em>, Terry didn’t say. “For the chance to fix what he’d fucked up.”</p>
<p>Hermione evaluated Terry, her brown eyes searching their face. “He’s frustrated with his job. Disillusioned, even. He’s not yet so <em>angry</em> at them that he’d do that. Right now, it’s a career he’s unhappy with and trying to figure out his place in, not some bright new enemy to vanquish. Not yet.”</p>
<p>Terry returned Hermione’s searching look with one of his own. “<em>Yet</em>,” they corrected her.</p>
<p>She blinked. “Did he tell <em>you</em> that?”</p>
<p>They shook their head. “He hasn’t realized.”</p>
<p>“How can <em>you</em> know he’s ready to fight the Aurors? If <em>he</em> doesn’t?”</p>
<p>Terry chewed their lower lip for a moment, weighing how to answer that, torn between giving Harry his privacy and giving the person who held the chess pieces the information she needed to play them. “Because,” they said carefully, “it’s not the Aurors. It’s Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco woke, blinking drowsily at the winter morning sunlight filtering through the curtains, dappling the room with the soft shadows of branches.</p>
<p>The chest of drawers beside the bed still had the empty mug from the tisane Neville sent him to bed with.</p>
<p>Before bed, Neville set the tea kettle under the tap, which turned itself on to fill it, then brushed a hand over the hob. It leapt to life with a ring of blue flame, and Draco stared, mentally putting together all the little casual scraps of wandless wordless magic he’d seen Neville do in their few short hours together.</p>
<p>He wondered if Neville knew he was exceptional.</p>
<p>He said so aloud.</p>
<p>Neville had laughed, surprised. <em>Me? I’m nowt of the sort, Malfoy. You know </em>that<em> as well as anyone</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>But we don’t even have the choice to start learning wandless magic until seventh year, and you just—</em>
</p>
<p><em>Oh, I never did </em>that<em>. Didn’t have the marks in Charms or Transfiguration to qualify</em>.</p>
<p>Draco had been sitting at the other end of the table from Neville, eating a piece of lemon poppyseed cake to take his meds.</p>
<p><em>This is going to put me to sleep, isn’t it?</em> he had asked when Neville set the mug in front of him. A cloud of steam rose curled out, drowsy and soothing.</p>
<p><em>You need it</em>, came the reply.</p>
<p>He had.</p>
<p>He was fairly certain that had been the soundest night’s sleep he’d had in longer than he’d care to admit.</p>
<p>Neville was already out to the greenhouses, leaving a short note on the table beside a plate of eggs and sausage with toast, kept warm and fresh under a statis charm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Malfoy,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Have classes till half past two this afternoon—Help yourself to anything you need. (Within reason. Obv.) Your clothes are clean, will leave them with this note before I leave. Harry and Terry coming later for dinner.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Trust you can occupy yourself w/out getting into trouble or doing anything stupid just because you’re left unsupervised, which is a rather pleasant change of pace I’ll not lie.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ta,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Neville</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There were, of course, no clothes near the note, which Draco found oddly comforting.</p>
<p>As wrong as he’d been about Neville Longbottom all those years ago, and as much as Neville had grown into something more capable and formidable than Draco ever imagined, his old familiar absentmindedness was reassuring.</p>
<p>After washing his breakfast dishes and searching out his clothes, he considered walking outside, but wasn’t sure if that would count as getting into trouble, if he ran into any students and had to explain who he was and what he was doing there.</p>
<p>He knew most of them would recognize him. He might look different in a few key ways now, but not <em>so</em> different that they couldn’t look at him and immediately see the boy whose face had once been plastered over so many newspapers.</p>
<p>
  <em>FATHER AND SON DEATH EATERS STAND TRIAL FOR MULTIPLE WAR CRIMES.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>DEATH EATER DRACO MALFOY SENTENCED TO AZKABAN.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>LYING? DEATH EATER DRACO MALFOY CLAIMS REMORSE.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>DEATH EATER DRACO MALFOY: MENACE TO SOCIETY?</em>
</p>
<p>He couldn’t stomach the thought of having to go through all that again.</p>
<p>What did they think of the person who had once let Death Eaters into their school? How could they not hate him <em>particularly</em>, for being one of them once and using that to betray Hogwarts?</p>
<p>But he was all restless nerves, with the sentence “<em>Harry and Terry coming later</em>” running on a loop in his head. He told himself it was pitiful to feel so nervous-giddy-hopeful-panicked about seeing <em>Harry Potter</em> again.</p>
<p>Because he <em>knew</em> this feeling. The last time he had it quite like <em>this</em> was in the early days of dating Dale, when he was still awed at having someone so textbook-perfect interested in <em>him</em>, the secret ex-con desperately trying to fake his way through seeming worth someone’s time.</p>
<p>He had no right to be feeling this about <em>Potter</em>. Not now, not under these circumstances, and certainly not under any of the <em>other</em> circumstances that marked the many years of their association.</p>
<p>And there was Terry Boot. Terry, who Draco was unafraid of seeing again, who didn’t give him that anxious flutter of butterflies, but who still mattered in their own way.</p>
<p>Terry was possibly second only to Crabbe and Goyle for having been there at the end, to watch Draco be what he let himself become. They had ingratiated themself as an aspiring errand-boy for the cause, a hopeful recruit from the Knockturn underbelly, with the pedigree of being the nephew of the man who had given Draco access to a cabinet.</p>
<p>The person Draco had been to Terry back then was not someone who could hope to have their help years later.</p>
<p>Then again, by that measure, he deserved Harry’s help even less. Or Neville’s.</p>
<p>Draco paced between the guest room and main room of the little cabin, examining plants and knick-knacks and the colorful painted decorations on the walls of the main room, done in several different hands. He wondered if any of them were Harry’s.</p>
<p>Neville had a cardigan hanging from the coat rack, cable-knit in thick soft yarn with a rich goldenrod hue.</p>
<p>Draco shrugged it on.</p>
<p>He made a pot of tea, lighting the hob with one of the long wooden matches from a box on the mantel.</p>
<p>Sitting on one of the round ottomans, enveloped in the big warm cardigan, his hands wrapped around a hot mug of Earl Grey, he felt transported back to a different cold winter day, less than two months ago, at the beginning of December.</p>
<p>He was sitting on the foot of Merv and Tony’s bed, wearing nothing but one of Tony’s flannel shirts, which was large enough to make him feel almost small inside it. Not much made him feel small, not anymore.</p>
<p>Merv was tangled lazily in the bedclothes, wearing even less, while Tony made mugs of hot chocolate from milk and powdered packets.</p>
<p>Alfie sat by Merv, in a flannel shirt that smelled of aftershave and beard oil and some intangible thing that was <em>Tony</em>, with a commemorative Red Sox World Series mug cradled in his hands, feeling safe and wanted in the world he’d built himself.</p>
<p>He took off Neville’s cardigan and stood up, even more now needing something to do to keep his mind from wandering off down all the dangerous paths it yearned to travel.</p>
<p>Harry, who was coming now because Neville asked him to, but who hadn’t on Sunday, when Draco had been counting on him.</p>
<p>Harry, who was coming now, when a week and a half ago, Draco believed he’d lost any chance of ever seeing him again.</p>
<p>Terry Boot, who had taken Draco’s virginity with more tenderness and care than Draco thought he deserved when he offered it to the rough-edged Ravenclaw in eyeliner and nail varnish whose motives owed Draco no such consideration.</p>
<p>Ex-Auror Neville Longbottom’s sweet sympathetic eyes as he said, <em>I’m sorry, Malfoy, but I can’t see a way around the fact that identity fraud is a crime.</em></p>
<p>Merv and Tony, and what he had with them, until he came home to find McLaggen and no choice but for all of that to change. And for any change to end with a loss he hadn’t been ready for yet.</p>
<p>Draco hung the cardigan back up and began to open the kitchen cabinets, looking for something—anything—to do to keep himself from dwelling too much on what they might be thinking right now.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the fuck,” Tony said. “What the actual <em>fuck</em>, Harry.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Harry replied, his voice sharp with anger. Not at Tony, but at what he’d just had to tell him. “Believe me, <em>I know</em>.”</p>
<p>He had finally heard from Neville, after promising again to let Tony and Merv know when he’d heard more, during his follow-up conversation with them after Merv opened the diner.</p>
<p>And after <em>that</em> phone call, he no longer felt it was fair to keep them too much in the dark. He didn’t mention wizards or magic or Death Eaters to Tony now, but he told him as close to everything as he could while keeping those parts quiet.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to add “breaking the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy” to his list of questionable decisions, but there was very little he felt entitled to keep from them anymore.</p>
<p><em>Listen,</em> Merv had said. <em>You should probably know how things are between us and Alfie.</em></p>
<p><em>I can’t speak for him, of course—I don’t think anyone in the </em>world<em> has the chutzpah to think they can get away with speaking </em>for<em> Alfie—but if he’s interested, we’re not a roadblock.</em></p>
<p><em>If </em>you’re<em> interested.</em></p>
<p><em>No offense</em>, Tony added, <em>but if you were going for </em>uninterested<em>, you failed. Your poker face sucks, just so you know.</em></p>
<p>But now he was telling Tony that his lover had been taken into custody with no warning and was stuck in the UK while things got sorted out. That his lover hadn’t been given any choice. That his lover had spent the weekend in a holding cell, and nobody had known it until halfway through Monday, when he’d already spent hours in an interrogation room.</p>
<p>“What the fuck,” Tony said again, sounding almost as angry as Harry felt. “And you were part of this?”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>,” Harry said. “No, I <em>wasn’t</em>. I had <em>no idea</em>. I told Merv I didn’t know what had happened—I only… I only knew the first part. Which was bad enough. I should have tried to stop it then. I shouldn’t’ve tried to take care of it for them. I thought I was doing the right thing then.”</p>
<p>“I know, I know, we’ve been through <em>that</em>,” Tony said impatiently. “I don’t need to keep hearing you apologize for what you’ve already done. But you really had <em>no idea</em> this was happening? You <em>work with</em> these people.”</p>
<p>Harry cringed. “I, er… I got suspended. The day after I got back from Maine. I lost my temper and yelled at my boss over what they were doing to Alfie.”</p>
<p>“<em>Jesus</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Harry agreed miserably, tired of letting people down over that stupid loss of self-control. “I know, I didn’t do anyone any good by doing that. Believe me, I’m <em>sorry</em>.”</p>
<p>“Goddamnit, Harry, that wasn’t me getting mad. That was—” Tony cleared his throat. “You <em>really</em> let yourself get suspended from your job defending Alfie?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“<em>Jesus</em>.”</p>
<p>“He was pretty pissed off at me about it,” Harry admitted.</p>
<p>“Of course he was,” Tony replied. “Misplaced anger is pretty much number one on the charts of Alfie’s greatest hits. Number two is not knowing how to accept proof that someone cares about him. Especially not in a gesture <em>that</em> goddamn big.”</p>
<p>“Tony,” Harry said, from the earnest sincere depths of the anger still inside him like kindling. “I won’t let them get away with this. Not now. Not for what they’ve fucking done to him.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Malfoy had taken over Neville’s kitchen to bake.</p>
<p>After the last Herbology class of the afternoon ended, Neville came back, kicking his damp soil-crusted boots into a bin by the door and hanging his coat on a hook.</p>
<p>He crossed over to the butcher block, which bore a liberal dusting of flour on one half and three wire cooling racks of rugelach fresh from the oven on the other.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” Neville asked, then after a pause, “Sorry, that’s a right stupid question, isn’t it? You’re making, ah…”</p>
<p>“Rugelach,” Malfoy finished for him. “It’s one of the only recipes I know from memory, and you had the ingredients, more or less. They’re filled with currant jam and walnuts, because that’s what was around… I hope you don’t mind that I took over your kitchen without asking, but I <em>do</em> think this qualifies as ‘occupying myself without getting into trouble,’ per your instructions.”</p>
<p>Neville passed a hand over the tops of the cooling rugelach to test which ones were cool enough to touch, then picked one up. “Far be it from me to judge a body for stress-baking,” he said. “Gods know I’ve used this very space for <em>that</em> often enough.” He took a bite of the rugelach and gave Malfoy an impressed look, as if reappraising everything he’d ever thought of him. “You know,” he added, “you’ve become a <em>much</em> more interesting person than what you used to be.”</p>
<p>Malfoy busied himself by dumping the last of the dough onto the floured surface in an effort to not look too obviously pleased by Neville’s words.</p>
<p>“This is the end of it,” he said as he rolled the dough into a circle. “Just need to make up this last batch, then I’ll clean up and return you your kitchen, mostly unscathed.”</p>
<p>“Can I help?” Neville asked. “Teach me what to do.”</p>
<p>Malfoy showed Neville how he rolled out the dough and spread the filling, then cut it into wedges like slicing up a pie. They rolled each wedge up, as Neville asked about how the dough was made, how long it had taken Malfoy to bake all these, where he had learned to make rugelach.</p>
<p>“Merv’s mother,” he said. “Once when we were visiting his parents in Queens. She told me I needed a least a couple recipes in my repertoire, so I could win a man over with baked goods whenever I wanted.”</p>
<p>Neville laughed a little at that. “She may have something there,” he said. “So you and Merv, then? And Tony.” He raised his eyebrows, curious but leaving it to Malfoy to interpret the question as he chose.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Malfoy said, feeling his cheeks go red. “Well.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Neville repeated, but didn’t press any further. He just took another rugelach and looked at Malfoy.</p>
<p>“Do you remember yesterday, when I said I had people in Maine who were as close to family as I’ve got now?”</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “My memory’s not <em>that</em> lousy, Malfoy. I remember you’ve a family now. And that’s who they are?”</p>
<p>“It’s the simplest way to describe what we are to each other.”</p>
<p>Neville smiled. “I like that,” he said. “I’ve got the same. Luna. Ron, Hermione, and all.”</p>
<p>“Potter?”</p>
<p>“Of course Harry too. Only he makes it more complicated than he should, not knowing how to accept all the family he’s got. Like he’s afraid to deserve it.” Neville made a face and shook his head. “Sorry, forget I said that. Not my place.” He sighed. “So. Friend-family, then? Not boyfriend-family?”</p>
<p>“Nice subject change,” Malfoy said, as he put the tray in the oven. “Smooth as ever, Longbottom.” He smirked, but it wasn’t mean-spirited. “Why do you ask?”</p>
<p>“Oh, well,” Neville said, shrugging. “It’s not my business. I just wondered. What with your whole ‘trying to avoid saying you’re in a triad’ vibe whenever they come up.”</p>
<p>Thrown off-guard by that, Malfoy looked up at Neville. “I don’t think that’s the word we’d use to describe it,” he said, to side-step the sensation he had of feeling too seen. “We just…” He waved a hand in a vague gesture and began to eat a rugelach to avoid saying anything more.</p>
<p>“Fuck?” Neville suggested. “Don’t worry, you can say that in front of me. I’m pretty familiar with the concept, and I’m not going to dock points from Slytherin for foul language.”</p>
<p>Malfoy raised an eyebrow in cool self-deprecation. “I’m a Malfoy, Longbottom. We’re uptight about that sort of thing. All that stiff-upper-lip, lie-back-and-think-of-England upper class repression, you know. Possibly it’s genetic by now.”</p>
<p>“You should probably work on that,” Neville advised. “All right. So. You’re sleeping together and they’re the two people closest to you, but you wouldn’t call it a triad?”</p>
<p>Malfoy shook his head. “No. They’re a couple, and I’m me on my own. We’re lovers second and friends—<em>family</em>—first. We know what we are to each other. They love me the way they love me, and I”—he gave a vague flit of his fingertips—“you know.”</p>
<p>Neville repeated Malfoy’s dismissive gesture with a raise of his eyebrows. “And this is how you say you love someone, is it?”</p>
<p>Malfoy glared at him.</p>
<p>“Aye, right,” Neville said in a mock serious tone, eyes shining. “Genetic repression of affection. I near forgot.”</p>
<p>“It’s not a <em>closed</em> triangle on my end,” Malfoy said. “I think that’s the difference, if there is one. Because I can be both <em>with</em> them and <em>also</em> single. Whereas they’re a couple together, <em>and</em> with me, <em>and</em> spoken for.” He paused. “I haven’t told Potter about them yet. Not <em>that</em> part. He just knows we’re close.”</p>
<p>Neville’s eyebrows rose. “And Harry should need to know the rest of it?”</p>
<p>“No,” Malfoy said, a little too fast and sharp. “Never mind.” He brushed crumbs from his fingertips with a little fluttering gesture and pressed on, knowing full well how clumsy and unsubtle this was: “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”</p>
<p>Neville did not look fooled, but still answered, “Not at the moment, I’m not, but that’s more complicated for me.”</p>
<p>“Being a Hogwarts professor?”</p>
<p>“Being asexual,” Neville said. “And aromantic.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Malfoy digested that piece of information for a moment, taking another rugelach from the cooling rack between them. “How do you know?”</p>
<p>Neville frowned at him.</p>
<p>“I’m not saying I don’t believe you.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>“I just wondered,” Malfoy said. “You don’t have to answer.”</p>
<p>“How did I know,” Neville echoed thoughtfully. “I don’t know, it took me a while to figure out. In school, I worried, when everyone was so preoccupied with wanting to date each other and I just… wasn’t. And I thought I might just feel I didn’t deserve it, because. You know.”</p>
<p>“Because I treated you like dirt?” Malfoy suggested.</p>
<p>“Don’t take too much credit. That was hardly a solo act on your part. Even my friends were guilty enough of insinuating in their own way I was a bit of a charity case. Or a late bloomer. Or there’s hope for you yet, mate, chin up.”</p>
<p>“Bastards.”</p>
<p>“They were trying to be kind.”</p>
<p>“Which is more than I can say of myself.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t going to point <em>that</em> out,” Neville said. “But at any rate. I suppose I thought that was part of the checklist of proving I was succeeding at adulthood. Get an impressive-seeming job, get a flat in the city, lose some weight, get a girlfriend, prove everyone wrong.” Neville laughed a little at the memory of his own folly. “Of course, every one of them things are a list for someone <em>else</em>, not <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>“So you’d rather not,” Malfoy said. “At all?”</p>
<p>“It depends.” Neville thought for a minute, piecing together how to explain. “I think it <em>can</em> be something I want, but I don’t… I don’t <em>need</em> it. I don’t <em>look</em> for it, or <em>miss</em> it, or <em>think</em> about it. It isn’t part of who I <em>am</em>. And the version of that thing for me is <em>different</em> than it is for you, or most everyone I know. It’s different, but it still gets to <em>matter</em>. If or when I choose to build—my own version of something with someone in whatever shape that’ll take.” He cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed. “Does that make any sense? Sometimes I feel I oughtn’t bother trying to confuse everything by explaining more than folks want. Easier to pretend it’s simple than admit it’s complicated. ‘Cause complicated is hard. Complicated risks being misunderstood.”</p>
<p>“And yet you’re giving <em>me</em> the complicated version.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “You asked, and I wanted to answer,” he said. “Plus, I don’t figure I’m too bothered by the risk of being misunderstood by you.”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t suppose my opinion ought to matter much to you.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t,” Neville agreed, cheerful and reassuring. “But I’m still glad you wanted to know. I’m not one to keep parts of myself hidden anymore; I got over being ashamed years ago.” He regarded Malfoy. “You don’t actually <em>not</em> tell them you love them, do you?”</p>
<p>“I’m sure they’re aware,” Malfoy assured him drily, “without me having to make sentimental declarations about it. And if I ever met someone with whom I had even half a hope of what they have with each other, they’d shove me toward him with both hands and cheer me from the sidelines.” Malfoy gave a little mirthless laugh. “Of course, not <em>precisely</em> what they have. I could never be fit for <em>that</em>. But whatever version of it there is out there for me.”</p>
<p>Neville was performing a silent cleaning charm on the dishes in the sink, but wasn’t turned away enough for Malfoy to miss the slight eyeroll he gave that statement. “You want my free advice, Malfoy?”</p>
<p>“Who am I to turn down guidance from one of Hogwarts’ esteemed educators.”</p>
<p>“That sounds like something that’s on you to fix about yourself.”</p>
<p>Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me to shut up and get over myself?” he asked, a note of begrudging admiration creeping into his voice.</p>
<p>Neville turned around to look at Malfoy, frankly and openly. “Aye, I am, but don’t go thinking it makes you a special case,” he said. “I’ve given that advice to near everyone I know for one reason or another by now, and not a one of ‘em have ever followed it either. So you also won’t be any more unique for ignoring me.”</p>
<p>“Potter?” Malfoy asked without thinking.</p>
<p>Neville favored him with the patient look he might give a student asking a particularly thoughtless question. “Are you asking me if I’ve ever thought <em>Harry</em> needed to shut up and fix his own problems?” he asked. “I don’t feel it a particular betrayal of our friendship to say: Malfoy, you’ve met Harry. What do <em>you</em> think?”</p>
<p>Malfoy declined to dignify that with a response.</p>
<p>“Exactly,” Neville said. “Now, come on, we’ve guests going to be here soon, so you’re helping me cook dinner.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "Armchair Anarchism" by Not Half Bad.</p>
<p>This one was longer between postings than I'd originally meant it to be . . . Fingers crossed I actually get the next chapter together faster than I did this one. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Twenty</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
<em>The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway</em><br/>
<em>Is that it’s you and that you are standing in the doorway</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When the flames in Neville’s fireplace turned green and silently leapt higher to release Harry into the room, Neville and Malfoy were standing together over a pot of chicken curry simmering on the hob.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s cardigan was tossed over the back of a chair when it had gotten too warm from the cooking and the freshly stoked fire. Neville’s shirtsleeves were rolled up past his elbows.</p>
<p>He was holding out his arm to Malfoy, tattooed in a vivid tangle of leaves and flowers.</p>
<p>One of Malfoy’s hands held Neville’s wrist as the other traced its fingertips over a cluster of long purple blooms.</p>
<p>“Dittany?” Malfoy was asking. “No. Shit. That’s wrong.”</p>
<p>Neville was chuckling. “Betony. My second years would be disappointed in you.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” Malfoy replied, “<em>that’s</em> the main thing they would be disappointed in me for. Forgetting my Herbology.”</p>
<p>Harry watched from the hearth how Malfoy’s long fingers encircled Neville’s wrist. He took in the side of Malfoy’s neck, craned to study the tattoos from a new angle, exposing a few mottled bite marks, maybe only a few days faded. The soft place under the sharp point of his chin, made more evident with his head tilted downward this way. The curve of his ruddy pink cheek. His long ghost-pale lashes. His mouth, sardonic and inviting.</p>
<p><em>Lovely</em>.</p>
<p>Draco Malfoy was <em>lovely</em>. That was the word for it, Harry realized, standing on the hearth, seeing him again. And for a moment, he couldn’t remember anything else in the world.</p>
<p>Malfoy slid his gaze gracefully from the artwork on Neville’s arm to Harry, dusting cinder from his shoulders and looking for all the world like he thought he could pretend he hadn’t stopped to stare.</p>
<p>He raised an eyebrow, aloof and knowing now. And something else, which made Harry feel a sort of nervous-hopeful he hoped didn’t show on his face. “Hello, Potter.”</p>
<p>The look that passed between them then couldn’t have been longer than a brief moment, eyes locked onto each other, frozen—Malfoy still and implacable, Harry feeling as though he was holding his breath—both waiting for the other to say the right next thing.</p>
<p>If this wasn’t Neville’s house, if Neville wasn’t standing right there, Malfoy thought he might rush forward to him right now, pull him onto the couch, not give either of them a chance to second-guess a thing, not give either of them a chance to clear up any of the things that needed resolving between them first.</p>
<p>Thank god it was Neville’s house. Thank god Neville was standing right here.</p>
<p>Neville turned from Malfoy to face Harry, a broad smile spreading over his face like sunlight. “Harry!”</p>
<p>And he was across the room, wrapping Harry in a tight hug.</p>
<p>“Hullo, Nev,” Harry said, voice muffled in Neville’s shoulder.</p>
<p>Releasing him, Neville took a step back and examined him. “You look well,” he decided.</p>
<p>“I… Er, should I not?”</p>
<p>Neville shrugged. “Haven’t seen you since afore the start of fall term. Which was after you and Ginny—you know. Come on,” he said, taking Harry by the hand and leading him away from the hearth into the sitting room, “take off your coat, hang it up, make yourself comfortable. If I’d known all it took to finally get you over for dinner was to harbor one of the Aurors’ most wanted, I would have tried to search one out ages ago.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was still looking at Harry, expression unchanged. “Why didn’t you come?”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you tell me you dated Terry?” Harry blurted out at the same moment, before Malfoy had even gotten his question out.</p>
<p>That wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but it was too late to swallow those words back.</p>
<p>Malfoy’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Is that where we’re starting? I hope <em>that’s</em> not why you chose not to help.”</p>
<p>“No, of <em>course</em> not. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I was thinking of that…”</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure if he’d taken a step closer to Malfoy, or if Malfoy had moved closer to him, but either way, they now stood not an arm’s length apart and Harry found himself acutely aware of every inch of nearness between them.</p>
<p>Malfoy ran his lower lip between his teeth, studying Harry’s face. “Don’t you?” he asked.</p>
<p>Harry tore his eyes away from Malfoy’s and pretended to look at the herb garden on Neville’s counter. “Er,” he said.</p>
<p>He looked flustered, his face answering Malfoy's question entirely without him having to say a word.</p>
<p>He looked flustered and it was <em>endearing</em>. God damn it.</p>
<p>It had been an unfair twist of the universe that Harry Potter should ever have even shown up in Maine in the <em>first place</em>.</p>
<p>It was even more unfair that he should be standing here again now, ten days later, just as beautiful as he had been that first evening, having somehow gotten even more <em>goddamn endearing</em> to Malfoy in the time since.</p>
<p>But what <em>made</em> it unfair was the fact Malfoy knew he was clear-headed to all Potter’s imperfections and personality flaws, his various shortcoming, and yet—<em>and yet</em>—still Potter filled him with a kind of yearning affection he hadn’t thought himself ready or able to feel for someone new. Not like this, not for somebody outside the safe relationships he’d carefully built himself in his safe little world, far away from all of this.</p>
<p>“You didn’t answer <em>my</em> question,” Malfoy admonished. “About what happened.”</p>
<p>Harry snapped his gaze back to him at that. “I know. I’m so sorry,” he said.</p>
<p>When Malfoy didn’t respond, the words kept crowding out in an earnest rush, “I swear it’s not that I didn’t—<em>care</em>—I just… I don’t know if Neville told you, I didn’t mean to leave you out to dry, or whatever you were afraid I’d done. There were these ducks, you see, and James got hold of my mobile and dropped it, so I had to leave it in rice, and I didn’t get Merv’s messages until it was too late for me to do a thing about it, and Terry, they told me <em>not</em> to, because they’d already—”</p>
<p>He stopped at the dismissive gesture Malfoy gave that. He supposed that careless flit of one wrist must be as close to Malfoy accepting his apology as he would get.</p>
<p>“You haven’t been to visit Longbottom here,” Malfoy said, changing the subject in an attempt to hide how ill-suited he felt at navigating others’ apologies.</p>
<p>Harry blinked. “I… I suppose not. But what’s that got to do with you—”</p>
<p>“Don’t keep going on about all <em>that</em>,” Malfoy cut in smoothly, waving away the events of the past couple days as though they were little but a minor inconvenience. “It’s likely for the best you didn’t come rushing in headfirst after all.” He paused. “And I wasn’t <em>afraid</em> you’d done anything. I could have handled things myself.” Flashing Neville the hint of a smile, he added, “Please don’t take that as me being ungrateful, of course.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “I wasn’t assuming you would have rather stayed behind.”</p>
<p>Malfoy’s mouth tilted into a hard humorless smirk. “What’s another few days in Auror holding here or there.”</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry, Malfoy,” Harry said again, sliding his coat off and hanging it on the hook with Malfoy’s. “Neville told me about… <em>that</em>.” A dark look came over his face. “If I had <em>known</em>.”</p>
<p>Malfoy was reminded that there was something to be said for not being on the side drawing Harry Potter’s anger, for the first time in his life.</p>
<p>“Yes, well,” Malfoy said. “You <em>didn’t</em> know. As it turns out.”</p>
<p>“But I’m here now,” Harry pointed out.</p>
<p>“Yes. So I see.” Malfoy plucked his cardigan from the chair back it was draped over, swinging it around his shoulders and slipping his arms back into the sleeves. The look on his face was a little awkward and tentative, as if he’d been caught out.</p>
<p>Not for having been comfortable having his Dark Mark bared and visible.</p>
<p>But for having been comfortable doing that in front of Neville.</p>
<p>And not Harry.</p>
<p>He cleared his throat. “Longbottom was just showing me his, ah…” He cleared his throat again and put one hand against Neville’s forearm, over the intricate composition of leaves and blooms and berries, which stirred under his fingers almost as if they were real plants. “It’s gorgeous work,” he said, more to Neville than to Harry. “Almost makes me wish I could go for this sort of thing myself.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t hurt as much as some people worry it might,” Harry said, trying not to look too interested in Malfoy’s touch over Neville's skin. He took a seat on one of the kitchen chairs, leaning forward to rest his folded arms on the tabletop. “That is, I reckon as long as you don’t have a problem with needles.”</p>
<p>His hand dropping away from Neville’s arm, Malfoy shot Harry a patronizing look, as if he’d said something particularly foolish. “Potter. I’m not put off by needles. I have piercings, after all.” He just half-chuckled in bitter amusement, shaking his head. “I just suspect I <em>may</em> have burned my bridges on tattoos back when I was sixteen.”</p>
<p>“Oh, right, ‘course,” Harry said, his mind still largely caught on the plural <em>piercings</em>. He swept his gaze over Malfoy, trying not to look too obvious about it.</p>
<p>Malfoy quirked an eyebrow at him and wrapped his cardigan around himself, turning his attention back to Neville. “Did we have an ETA for our favorite Ravenclaw?”</p>
<p>Neville had been looking from Malfoy to Harry and back again with the careful, slightly suspicious expression usually meant for students he suspected of misbehavior but couldn’t quite catch out. At Malfoy’s question, he shrugged and glanced at the clock on the mantel. “They said they leave work at five,” he said, “so I imagine any moment now.”</p>
<p>For a moment, Harry was surprised at the idea of Terry actually staying in the office through the end of the workday, instead of slipping out ten to forty minutes early. Then he remembered that Terry was treading carefully now, under closer supervision than ever before, and felt that flash of guilt he was getting far too used to feeling over the past week.</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> sorry,” he said again to Malfoy, at a lack of anyone else to apologize to. “Neville called me and asked if I was—what was it—if I was ‘aware of the underhanded dogshite my boss and ex-partner tried to pull.’”</p>
<p>Malfoy shot Neville a smug triumphant look. “I <em>knew</em> you were being <em>far</em> too diplomatic when you told me what you said to them.”</p>
<p>“You don’t need to call him my ex-partner,” Harry said. “Like <em>I</em> should have any say in what he does.”</p>
<p>Neville shrugged and stirred the pot of curry with a wooden spoon. “You did once.”</p>
<p>“But <em>now</em>,” Harry said, “I didn’t <em>know</em>. I had no idea that he would actually—”</p>
<p>Before Malfoy could interrupt, Neville stopped stirring and turned back to Harry. “That’s a load of utter <em>shite</em>, Harry, and you know it. Of course you did. Of <em>course</em> you expected something like this. You <em>warned</em> Malfoy to prepare for it.” He gestured in Malfoy’s direction with the wooden spoon, dripping sauce over the hob.</p>
<p>“Now, hang on,” Harry protested.</p>
<p>Neville regarded Harry with a look that somehow managed to be both hard and soft, both critical and pitying. “Ten years in, you know how your job works by now, is all I’m saying.”</p>
<p>Harry opened his mouth, wanting to argue back, but found that there was no argument for that. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked instead.</p>
<p>Neville sighed. “I don’t know, Harry,” he said. “<em>I’m</em> not the one to be asking; I’ve not been a part of all <em>that</em> since I got out. All I can offer right now is as far as I can see, the next step’s to put a pot of tea on and try not to rush into picking a course of action right this moment.” His tone was mild, but still communicated an unspoken, <em>As we all know you’re wont to do, Harry.</em></p>
<p>Malfoy had crossed to perch nonchalantly on the edge of the tiled countertop near the terracotta herb garden, about as far from Harry as was politely reasonable.</p>
<p>“Christ, I hope Terry’s got more ideas than you two,” he commented, examining his own fingernails as if mildly bored by the whole situation.</p>
<p>“I’m sure they have,” Neville agreed mildly as he set the kettle on the hob beside the simmering soup pot, but he still rolled his eyes at Harry with a smile and shake of his head in reaction to Malfoy’s pretense of haughty boredom.</p>
<p>For the next few minutes, Neville and Harry chatted about how Neville’s work was going and how Harry’s children were doing, while Neville made four mugs of Earl Grey and pretended not to notice the way both Harry and Malfoy would slip glimpses at each other when they thought the other wasn’t paying attention.</p>
<p>Malfoy memorized the one lock of black hair falling forward over Harry’s forehead, imagined what it might be like to brush it aside, what the lines of Harry’s scar might feel like under his fingertips.</p>
<p>Harry was in dark jeans and a long-sleeved green cotton shirt that did truly <em>unfair</em> things to his shoulders and biceps.</p>
<p>Especially since Malfoy was still wearing the same old Ogunquit Public Library shirt, faded and clinging, which he hoped Harry wouldn’t take painstaking account of in the same way he was doing to Harry.</p>
<p>He wished he was wearing something else, something a little less well-worn, something that wasn’t a shade too tight now, prone to riding up a little to leave a gap above the waistband of his jeans.</p>
<p>But when he was tugging the hem down, he caught Harry noticing as they mistimed their covert glances at each other, seeing the unguarded look in Harry’s eyes.</p>
<p>Spots of pinks flushed Malfoy’s cheeks in response.</p>
<p>Harry ducked his head and pretended to be suddenly interested in the botanical print of alliums over the stove. But he didn’t think Malfoy seemed <em>embarrassed</em> to catch Harry looking at him like that; if anything, he seemed pleased.</p>
<p>The fireplace flared green and Terry emerged.</p>
<p>They still wore their Department robes over slacks and a button-up shirt with a conservatively striped tie, their leather jacket and messenger bag slung over one shoulder.</p>
<p>They dropped them unceremoniously on one of the ottomans when they saw Malfoy across the room.</p>
<p>Malfoy got off the edge of the kitchen counter and moved towards Terry, as Terry crossed Neville’s main room in just a few strides to meet him.</p>
<p>“<em>Bloody</em> hell,” Terry exclaimed. “Bona to fucking vada, Malfoy. Been an age and a half, innit?” They put both hands on Malfoy’s shoulders to hold him at arm’s length and gave him a blatant once-over. “Cor, Harry wasn’t lying about you getting sexier.”</p>
<p>Harry almost choked on his tea. “I never said that!”</p>
<p>Terry ignored that. “America’s been good to you, dear,” they said to Malfoy. Over their shoulder, they added to Harry, “I know what you <em>said</em>, but I extrapolated what you <em>meant</em>.” They tapped their temple, grinning. “Don’t forget what I used to be good at, Harry love.”</p>
<p>Neville raised his eyebrows at Harry.</p>
<p>Harry took another swallow of tea, too big a gulp for how hot it still was.</p>
<p>Malfoy looked Terry over from head to toe, brow furrowed. “Jesus fucking Christ, Terry,” he said, “I didn’t doubt what Potter said about them giving you a dress code, but…”</p>
<p>“But it’s awful,” Terry agreed. “Believe me, we all got our complaints here. Even the wunderkind problem child.” They tilted their head in Harry’s direction. A small smile grew larger on their wide mouth as they looked from Harry to Neville. “And esteemed members of the Hogwarts faculty as well, I wager, given how eager you was to do us a favor and spring Draco here from Abernathy and McLaggen. And we’re all well aware it ain’t ‘cause you’re Draco Malfoy’s number one fan.”</p>
<p>Neville laughed in agreement. “I’m starting to come around a bit,” he said. “Maybe <em>number one fan</em> is a stretch, though.”</p>
<p>“Maybe not,” Malfoy said, a smile at the corners of his mouth. “The competition for that title is not stiff, I assure you.”</p>
<p>“Merv,” Neville suggested, as he took a stack of bowls down from a shelf. “Tony.”</p>
<p>Harry tore his attention from Malfoy to look at Neville in surprise. “You know about Merv and Tony?”</p>
<p>“Aye, I know about Merv and Tony.” His tone was still pleasant and conversational enough, but that sentence seemed intended to convey more than simple agreement. And whatever else it was meant to say, it was directed at Malfoy, not Harry.</p>
<p>Malfoy gave Neville a slow cool look with a knowing arch of his eyebrow. “Yes,” he agreed, and said nothing more about that. Instead, he moved to clear some of the prep dishes into the sink and asked, “Anything you need help with to get dinner on the table?”</p>
<p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Terry said. “It’s almost ready? Oh hell, d’you think I could have—?” They hastened to unfasten their work robes and toss them over the back of the sofa. “Just give me two minutes. Three, tops. I’ll be right back, I need to see it again”—they shrugged their jacket back on—“before the sun’s set all the way, before it’s too dark.”</p>
<p>Neville set the stack of bowls down, understanding. “You just need to go out the front door,” he said, “and turn left at the treeline when you get to the end of the grounds, and then—”</p>
<p>Terry waved a hand to stop him. “I’ll find it just fine,” they said impatiently, unable to mask the eager note in their voice. “It’s a bloody great castle, how hard can it be to miss?”</p>
<p>And they were gone through the front door.</p>
<p>Harry and Malfoy both stared after Terry.</p>
<p>“They haven’t had a chance to come back, I take it,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“Well, they couldn’t have, could they,” Malfoy replied, flat and tired. With a sigh, he turned away from the door. “Come on, Longbottom, let’s get dinner on the table.”</p>
<p>The three of them spent the next few minutes putting out bowls of warm stew, spoons, cloth napkins. Neville pulled a loaf of bread from the oven where it had been warming and nestled thick crusty slices of it in a tea towel in a wooden bowl.</p>
<p>He pulled an unlabeled bottle from a small wine rock in the corner of the kitchen and uncorked it. “Dandelion wine,” he said, pulling four glasses down from a cupboard.</p>
<p>“And you made it yourself, didn’t you?” Malfoy asked.</p>
<p>Neville nodded as if that should have been a given.</p>
<p>“Oh my God,” Malfoy said. “You’re an actual <em>hobbit</em>, you know that?”</p>
<p>Harry fought back a laugh at that.</p>
<p>“I’ve no idea what a hobbit is,” Neville said to Harry. “How insulted am I supposed to feel right now?”</p>
<p>“Well, they’re these people in Muggle films and books,” Harry began. “<em>Lord of the Rings</em>. They’re quite small—”</p>
<p>“So far, not seeing the similarity,” Neville commented, starting to pour the wine.</p>
<p>“And quite pastoral,” Malfoy said. “Farming, baking, whatnot. Vegetable gardens and fresh bread and regular mealtimes. Very into, ah, domestic coziness as a way of life.”</p>
<p>Neville contemplated that. “And there are films about this?”</p>
<p>“Well, no,” Harry admitted. “They’re about a million hours long and mostly about war and having a generally bad time trying to defeat an evil… er, floating eye that used to be a sorcerer.”</p>
<p>With a sigh, Neville said, “Think I’ll pass on those then.” He began to place the wine glasses at each place setting. “I don’t know I’ve got a million hours for a war and a bad time.”</p>
<p>Terry came back in then, eyes a little red and glossy with tears. After taking their jacket off again, they rubbed their shirt cuff roughly over their eyes and crossed over to the table. “Well, that was… Yeah. <em>So</em>. What’s for dinner?” they asked.</p>
<p>Neville set the last glass of wine down and crossed over to Terry, wrapping them in a brief tight hug. But when he let them go, all he said was, “Chicken curry. Come, let’s sit down.”</p>
<p>If someone had asked Harry just a couple weeks ago, he would have entertained the possibility he might at some point end up at Neville’s for dinner. Maybe.</p>
<p>But he would have laughed aloud if anyone suggested the two people across the table would be Draco Malfoy and Terry Boot.</p>
<p>The curry was only mildly spicy, but it was hearty and filling, and Harry suspected the fresh-ground spices it used had been grown by Neville himself. The rice was pillowy and fragrant, the wine was sweet, and the company—as odd a gathering as it was—felt somehow safe and comforting, especially after the last week of so much time spent by himself in his flat, worrying and feeling alone and helpless.</p>
<p>“So,” he said, looking over to Terry and forcing himself away from being so unfairly <em>acutely</em> aware of Malfoy sitting right across from him, “do we have a plan?”</p>
<p>Terry blinked their big eyes at Harry, unruffled. “I don’t know,” they said. “<em>Do</em> we?”</p>
<p>Malfoy shot Terry a look somewhere between impatient and amused. “And here I was led to believe you were our only hope for that,” he said. “So I’m not feeling particularly encouraged by your response.”</p>
<p>“Look, you two,” Terry said, gesturing between Harry and Malfoy with their fork. “I got Draco out of custody. I kept an ear out and passed along the paperwork to Harry in the <em>first</em> place. I did me own share here, on something what weren’t never supposed to be <em>mine</em> to be responsible for in the <em>first</em> place. One or the other of you’s got to start figuring something out for yourself, ‘cause I ain’t able to do it all <em>for</em> you.”</p>
<p>Malfoy met Harry’s eyes and raised his eyebrows questioningly, but said nothing.</p>
<p>“Hang on,” Harry said. “Is this about—The owl you sent Saturday that said something about having had to sit through a talk at work on Friday? You said you thought you’re being <em>straitjacketed</em>. That’s the word you used. What’s that mean? What’s happening?”</p>
<p>Terry was quiet a moment, thinking through all the possible responses they might have to that. “I did say that, yes,” they replied. “But that’s nothing to do with this business. Leave it be, Harry love. All’s you have to know is, I don’t think I’ve got as much freedom to wander about and dig up information right now. Right <em>now</em>, all <em>I</em> can promise to give you are the things what I already knew before Friday. Not that I’m the only one working on this here.” They took a long drink from their glass of wine. “But I <em>do</em> know a <em>lot</em> of things. I just don’t know what good any of ‘em <em>are</em>. At least as far as this business goes. I can know a thousand things, but that won’t make ‘em <em>relevant</em>.” They took another swallow of wine. “Not <em>everything</em> I’m working on is about <em>you</em>,” they added, then winced at how much harsher that sounded than they’d intended.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat and looked to Neville. Neville shrugged helplessly back.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I didn’t mean to suggest…” He trailed off, frowning. “Terry, what the bloody <em>hell</em> happened to you at work on Friday?”</p>
<p>“I told you it wasn’t important,” Terry replied.</p>
<p>“No,” Harry retorted. “You told me it was unrelated to”—he waved his hand gracelessly in Malfoy’s general direction—“all <em>this</em> nonsense. But it’s four days later and it’s still <em>under</em> your skin, so I wouldn’t call that <em>unimportant</em>.”</p>
<p>“How flattering,” Malfoy murmured, “to be referred to as <em>all this nonsense</em>.” He mimicked Harry’s gesture languidly, the movement of his hand much prettier than Harry’s had been. His lips were pressed together in something that wasn’t precisely a smirk, but when he met Harry’s eyes, there was something teasing that shone there.</p>
<p>“If the shoe fits,” Harry returned. “And be quiet a minute, this isn’t about you.” He turned back to Terry. “<em>Well?</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>Well</em>,” Terry echoed, “it ain’t <em>really</em> your business, if I’m being honest. I’m allowed to be dealt a shite hand and not want to spread it out on the table for everyone’s amusement over dinner.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what Harry was suggesting,” Neville broke in, his voice both gentle and firm. “And you know it, Terry.”</p>
<p>Malfoy, meanwhile, had picked up his wine glass to swirl the liquid languidly without drinking, as if using the gesture entirely to punctuate the cool withering gaze he regarded Terry with. “Never hint to Potter that you’ve a problem,” he advised, “if you don’t want him going all <em>Gryffindor</em> all over it like that. Therein lies the fatal mistake of befriending <em>that</em> sort of bleeding heart knight in armor.”</p>
<p>Terry narrowed their eyes at Malfoy. “Ah, yes,” they replied, “that exact tactical error on me part is the crux of <em>your</em> whole strategy here, innit?”</p>
<p>Malfoy was hit by the guilty memory of making precisely those calculations that night in Maine.</p>
<p>
  <em>God, this Gryffindor idealism.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, good. I can use that.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You’re still such a fucking Slytherin, aren’t you.</em>
</p>
<p>He set his wine down a little too hard, a few drops splashing over the edge of the glass onto the tabletop. He focused on wiping them dry with his cloth napkin, not wanting to look up, not wanting to meet Harry’s eyes in that moment.</p>
<p>“That’s not fair, Boot,” Harry said. His tone was serious and firm; it was the voice Malfoy remembered him using when he defended his friends, back in school.</p>
<p>Terry looked at Harry for a long searching moment, then nodded as if they’d found what they were looking for in his face. “You’re right,” they said. “Sorry.” They finished their wine and pushed their glass to the side. “I’ll try’n give our former Death Eater here the benefit of the doubt on that new leaf I’ve heard so much about him turning over.”</p>
<p>“Good idea,” Neville put in. “So’m I.” He smiled a little and passed the bread to Malfoy for him to take another piece. “It’s been enlightening, I’ll grant that.”</p>
<p>Malfoy raised his eyebrows at Terry in a way that would not have seemed like an apology on anyone else. He slid his glass across to them, saying, “I stand by what I said: If you don’t want Potter helping you with your problems, best not let him know about them.”</p>
<p>“Now, hang on a moment,” Harry said. “I don’t think wanting to help you is some weird unique trait only <em>I</em> have. Hermione wants to help you and she doesn’t even <em>know</em> you.” A small furrow appeared between his brows as he tried to decide if he’d just said more than he’d meant to, for anyone who could read more in his words than he often did.</p>
<p>From the look on Terry’s face, they could.</p>
<p>But all they said was, “He ain’t wrong there. She’s still working on finding a solution, you know. Had lunch with her meself just today and she told me—Well, she said I ought to keep me mouth shut for the moment and wait ‘til she gives us the word she’s got something in the works.”</p>
<p>“So it’s not quite so much a matter of you being too busy with this personal crisis of yours,” Malfoy said, smooth as silk, buttering his second piece of bread with a grace taught for elegant dinner parties, “but a matter of you getting to take orders from Hermione Granger.”</p>
<p>Terry narrowed their eyes slightly. “And that’s supposed to imply <em>what</em>, exactly.”</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat and said, “<em>So</em>. Neville. How’s Hogwarts these days?”</p>
<p>Neville drew his attention away from Malfoy and Terry, once he was certain they had dropped the conversation Harry had averted. “Hogwarts?” he said. “It’s well here, it is. Or—It’s <em>getting</em> to be well again. We’re near to fully staffed again, least as far as having all the important positions filled again.” He took a sip of wine and shrugged. “For <em>this</em> year, anyroad.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned. “For this year?” he repeated.</p>
<p>Neville winced. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make that sound so… <em>pessimistic</em>. I think the school’s just in a—what-d’you-call-it—a transitional period, if you will. A lot of the old staff started to retire after <em>everything</em>, which is fair ‘nough, of course. So many of them were getting to be of an age as it was, and had already done more’n enough for the school in those last days.” He took a bite of curry, looking thoughtful. “None of that’s a <em>bad</em> thing, mind. A body’s got every right to want to retire in their old age and live the quiet years they’ve earned.”</p>
<p>Malfoy made himself look up from his plate to Neville’s face. He had opened this conversation; he had to make himself see it through, all those things he’d been wanting to know since the Knight Bus but not having the nerve to ask. Not until now, when he could couch it in pretending to make light dinner conversation, as if the answers were idle small talk instead of something that yearned with importance, aching in his chest.</p>
<p>“Sprout retired,” he said. “Hence you.” He indicated Neville with a roll of the wrist. “And you mentioned asking Flitwick to take down the ward to keep me off the grounds, so I assume he’s still here.”</p>
<p>He didn’t look at Terry.</p>
<p>Terry took a swallow from the glass Malfoy had given them.</p>
<p>“Not to keep <em>you</em> out specifically,” Neville said. “But, aye, Flitwick’s still here, same as ever.”</p>
<p>Terry put on a broad cheeky smile at that, shifting quickly from the quiet pensive look they’d gotten. “Merlin, I <em>adore</em> that dear old codger,” they said. “He used to tell me I had <em>potential</em>. What a sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“You do,” Neville told them, with such a nonchalant certainty that it was impossible to refute those two little syllables, before continuing, “Hyssop Faraday teaches Potions now. She was at Hogwarts before our time, class of ’84. Ravenclaw. Bloody brilliant, with a heart as good as gold.”</p>
<p>“Nice change of pace for Potions,” Harry remarked before he could stop himself.</p>
<p>But Malfoy just mimed raising a glass to toast that. “Hear, hear,” he said, a wry smile twisting one corner of his mouth. “And <em>I’m</em> not the one who named my kid after the man. What about Vector?”</p>
<p>“Retired quite happily to Belgium,” Neville said.</p>
<p>“Good for her,” Malfoy replied. “I was quite good at Arithmancy, you know.”</p>
<p>“Don’t know that’d make up for the rest of it in Vector’s eyes,” Terry remarked.</p>
<p>Malfoy shot them a peevish look.</p>
<p>“Trelawney,” Harry said, blurting out the first name he thought of, in an attempt to keep Terry and Malfoy from snapping at each other the way they seemed poised to do.</p>
<p>“She retired a few years back,” Neville said.</p>
<p>“I know,” Harry said. “We went to her farewell luncheon together. But I just, er, wanted to know how she’s doing?” He flicked a short look at the two across the table and raised his eyebrows at Neville.</p>
<p>Neville nodded, understanding. “Oh, <em>aye</em>, of course. Well. You told me once you knew why Dumbledore hired her? She wasn’t—She wasn’t ever quite meant to be a schoolteacher, I don’t think. But after everything, the strain of it all…” He shook his head, making a small tutting noise of sympathy. “She’s got a comfortable pension—which she <em>more</em> than deserves—and lives in a lovely little house near her brother in Cornwall. Begonias and cabbage roses in the front garden.”</p>
<p>Neville paused to look from Terry to Malfoy, something very professorial in his face that warned them to drop the urge to bicker. “Firenze’s offered to take it up,” he went on, “but not as a proper course with <em>grades</em>. He’ll do it once every week or two, for anyone who wants to come. It wasn’t really <em>fair</em>, see, to have expected anyone to <em>learn</em> Divination the way you can Potions or Herbology. Either you’re born a Seer, or you’re not. It’s rather like being a Metamorphmagus or a born Parseltongue, I suppose, and just as rare. Someone can learn all they want about how it works, but they can’t learn to <em>be</em> one. Firenze thinks only one student has shown even a glimmer of promise in his memory.” He looked over at Draco “He’s a Knight Bus porter now.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Malfoy blinked. “That’s… I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Neville shook his head. “There’s no living to be made in it either way, having lightning strike for you only <em>slightly</em> more often than anyone else.”</p>
<p>“Smart as paint, that Mickey Burke,” Terry commented. “Crying shame.”</p>
<p>“You said <em>nearly</em> fully staffed,” Malfoy observed. “What’s empty?”</p>
<p>“Well, Arithmancy,” Neville said. “After Vector retired. Ancient Runes, since Barlow took over Transfiguration after McGonagall became Headmistress. Muggle Studies, because—Well. There’s a lot of <em>because</em> there, I suppose.”</p>
<p>Malfoy felt a pang of guilt, thinking of Professor Burbage. He tried to remind himself that he’d had no hand in her death.</p>
<p>But he’d taken the glass he was offered when they’d all toasted that victory in the Manor’s west parlor.</p>
<p>“I’ve thought a lot about that class over the last several years,” Malfoy admitted, feeling suddenly so vulnerable in saying that aloud. “How I wish I’d been allowed to take it, how it <em>should</em> be taught, how it <em>wasn’t</em> taught, from what I saw of Zabini’s coursework. What I would do differently, if anyone ever wanted to hear <em>my</em> opinion on the matter.”</p>
<p>“Don’t reckon you’re going to be the top of Hogwarts’ list for that one,” Terry said, a slight chill in their voice. “What with two of the last four being Quirrell and Carrow.”</p>
<p>Neville was studying Malfoy thoughtfully. “Don’t know if I agree, Terry,” he said. “<em>I’d</em> like to hear Malfoy’s opinion on that sometime.”</p>
<p>“Don’t feel obligated to humor me,” Malfoy told him. “You’ve been more than accommodating enough already. I imagine that just leaves the last big one left: What about”—Malfoy flickered his fingertips in Harry’s direction—“Defense Against the Dark Arts? Who’s got that now? And is the job still cursed?”</p>
<p>Neville chuckled a little ruefully. “Nay, not cursed, not exactly, but… It’s a pickle right now, I’ll not lie. Right now we’ve got a lovely bloke teaching it, right smart and plenty educated, but he’s an <em>academic</em>, which is all well and good for most subjects, but when we’re barely out of having students who were <em>here</em> for the Battle…” He looked at Harry, knowing he would understand. And not quite wanting to direct the rest of his answer straight to Malfoy. “Memories aren’t <em>that</em> short, you know. For something like that, it’ll be awhile still before it stops feeling like just yesterday, even to the folks who weren’t… us.”</p>
<p>Harry moved a piece of chicken around on his plate. “Let alone us,” he agreed quietly, setting his fork aside.</p>
<p>Neville nodded, putting one hand over Harry’s. “But that means so many of the students are all still… <em>Scared</em> is too strong a word. <em>Worried</em>, maybe. And Hargreaves is a competent teacher, he knows the coursework, but the students all know he’s never <em>lived</em> it, so they keep—They keep coming to me. And it’s not <em>fair</em> of me, is it, to look like I’m undermining him by answering their questions, but they’re <em>children</em>, and they just want to believe they’ll be <em>safe</em>.” He made a face. “But I think I’m making things tense for him, just by my being here, and I worry he might quit and go back to his research in a year or so. And I’ll feel it’s at least a bit my fault when he does.”</p>
<p>Harry squeezed Neville’s hand back. “No,” he said. “Don’t feel bad for being here for them—I think… I think they <em>need</em> that, and someone here ought to be able to give it to them.”</p>
<p>“Someone not McGonagall or Flitwick,” Terry agreed, looking more at Harry than Neville. “Someone they can see as having been a kid like them once, recent enough to actually remember what it feels like to be where they are now.”</p>
<p>Harry looked across the table to see that Malfoy’s eyes were on him as well. His expression was different from Terry’s appraising one. It was leisurely and aloof and just a little smirking, and Harry recognized it now from the way Malfoy had looked at him in Maine. He knew now that what it was, was admiration, in the cool self-indulgent way that only <em>Malfoy</em> could have when admiring someone else.</p>
<p>“I <em>did</em> tell Longbottom,” Malfoy drawled, all drawn-out liquid nonchalance, “that he seemed like <em>nearly</em> the perfect candidate for the job. Gryffindor war hero and all that. Former Auror.” He took his last bite of curry and then arched an eyebrow meaningfully. “Trained by Harry Potter himself, which is really the next best thing.”</p>
<p>“Laying it on a bit thick, ain’t you?” Terry murmured.</p>
<p>They flinched then as if Malfoy had given them a small kick under the table, but just smiled in response, satisfied and victorious.</p>
<p>“Oh, look,” Harry said, a little loudly, “you seem to be done with dinner. Shall I clear up the dishes? Neville, want me to start the washing up?”</p>
<p>Neville studied the two seated across the table. “Hmm,” he said, so casually contemplative, “Malfoy, you and Terry can do the washing up. Harry’s going to give me a hand in the greenhouse.”</p>
<p>Terry’s eyes brightened at that. “I’d love to help—”</p>
<p>Neville shook his head. “Next time, Terry; I promise. But right now, I’d really like Harry’s help, thanks. Besides I get the impression the two of you need to catch up.” He rose from the table and began to gather his dishes, giving them all an encouraging smile. “If you've a mind to have dessert, Malfoy baked rugelach,” he went on. “There are still some left on the plate over there, though I’ll admit we probably ate rather more than our share this afternoon.”</p>
<p>“<em>I </em>hadn’t planned on admitting that,” Malfoy said drily. He turned to Harry, sharing a slight smile. “Merv’s mother taught me the recipe.”</p>
<p>Harry nodded. “I’ll have some,” he said. “After I help Neville with—Whatever he needs.”</p>
<p>Neville had already shrugged on his winter coat, and tossed Harry his, opening the door for them to head outside.</p>
<p>Harry had to hurry to keep pace with Neville, who knew the rocky ground by heart now, even in the dark moonlight.</p>
<p>“What’s going on with those two?” he asked, nodding back towards the cabin, its windows glowing warm and inviting through the trees.</p>
<p>“Malfoy and Terry?” Neville shook his head and shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest. Your guess is as good as mine. Better, even. I don’t know either of them half as well as you do by now.”</p>
<p>“Well. No. Er, I s’pose that’s true.” Harry knit his brow, acclimating himself again to the notion that <em>he</em> was indisputably the one here who knew Draco Malfoy best.</p>
<p>“I only got the sense they ought to talk,” Neville went on. “Without the likes of us listening in. Both you and me’ve had the chance to have <em>that</em> conversation with Malfoy. Be foolish to believe we’re the only two who deserve it. Figure we ought to give Terry a chance to speak their piece to him too.” He laughed a little into the darkness. “Worst case, they end up killing him in frustration, and then we’ve got a much more straightforward legal problem on our hands.”</p>
<p>Harry chuckled at that, pretending not to remember a time when Neville Longbottom’s sense of humor didn’t yet have that bleak vein running through it, surfacing only with people close enough to be allowed to see it. People like Harry.</p>
<p>They came up the last rise of uneven stone-studded ground, around a curve of trees at the forest’s edge, and Harry stopped, his breath catching in his throat.</p>
<p>The grounds swept upward, vast and silver in the moonlight, the lake a cool black mirror, up to Hogwarts castle, rising up against the inky sky like a cut-paper silhouette, glittering with a hundred flickering candlelit windows like pinpricks.</p>
<p>A hint of full moon glowed gray and gauzy through the winter clouds.</p>
<p>Harry stared up at the turrets and towers, the walkways over the maze of roofs, the cluster of dark huddling shapes that made up the enormous wandering body of his old school.</p>
<p>Even in the night, Neville could see the glitter in Harry’s green eyes. He reached out, took Harry’s hand, and pulled him gently towards the greenhouses. “Come on, Harry. Come to my greenhouse first. We’ll go up after.”</p>
<p>Harry shook his head, not quite able to tear his eyes away. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do that. Malfoy’s right. I’ve not been to see you. I’ve not been back to—You know. I haven’t… I’m not sure that I’m allowed.”</p>
<p>That didn’t make sense. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say.</p>
<p>But Neville nodded anyway. “I know,” he said. “But you are.” He pulled Harry closer, engulfing him in a large warm hug. “But come along, greenhouse first. Malfoy and Terry aren’t the only two who need to talk.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning from "Going to Georgia" by The Mountain Goats.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter Twenty-One</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Pulled my sleeves down over my hands, over my hands</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And I wished I was someone else</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And I wished it was warmer</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry relegated Draco to sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, while they started in on the dinner dishes, wand in hand, working through them with a fierce efficiency.</p>
<p>After a couple minutes’ silence, Draco said, “So are you not speaking to me, or… ?”</p>
<p>Terry glanced up from a tricky scouring charm on a stubborn patch on one of the pots. “I’m doing the washing up, like we was asked to do,” they said. “Just knew it’d take forever if I made you do it by hand. No point in punishing you with <em>that</em>, is there?”</p>
<p>Draco sighed. “And here you seemed so happy to see me when you first got here.”</p>
<p>Terry set the pot down in the sink. “I <em>am</em> happy to see you,” they said, turning to look at him. “I think. It’s just… It’s a lot, innit? You’re only <em>you</em>, sure, but the memories you bring <em>with</em> you… Maybe I was less ready to look all <em>those</em> in the eye than I thought. Not today, anyway. Not with all of <em>this</em> to deal with already.”</p>
<p>Nodding slowly, Draco said, “Well. Thank you for helping me.”</p>
<p>Terry busied themself with finishing the curry pot and starting in on the last of the utensils. “Ain’t doing it for <em>you</em>,” they muttered under their breath, a bite in the words.</p>
<p>“Sorry, what was that?” Draco asked testily. “I didn’t <em>quite</em> catch what you said.”</p>
<p>Terry shot them a sharp look.</p>
<p>Draco sighed and slid off the counter to begin putting the clean dishes away.</p>
<p>He worried he was being petulant, as though some part of him wanted to revert to being the version of himself that Terry had known once.</p>
<p>Terry leaned back against the counter and surveyed him, folding their arms.</p>
<p>“Let me be upfront,” they said. “I don’t <em>care</em> about you getting the Malfoy family fortune back. I don’t give a rat’s arse whether that bloody sodding goddamn tomb of a house is ever yours again. I don’t care if you <em>want</em> it. You don’t <em>need</em> it.”</p>
<p>Draco blinked his eyes at that blunt admission. “I <em>don’t</em> want it,” he said. “I’m merely doing this as a matter of principle. It’s reprehensible to think the Ministry can just <em>decide</em> to reclaim property that isn’t theirs, just to avoid it coming out that they never had proper ownership to begin with.”</p>
<p>Terry nodded slowly. “Good. Glad to hear it. It’s a matter of principle for us too, so that’ll make it easier to stomach fighting for a rich boy’s undeserved birthright.”</p>
<p>“<em>Undeserved</em>?” Draco repeated. “Whether <em>you</em> happen to think I deserve it or not, it’s <em>mine</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Terry said. “That’s what <em>we’re</em> saying too. But that don’t mean you <em>deserve</em> it. Ain’t <em>no one</em> deserves to be given more money than I can even <em>imagine</em>, just for being born, and a house what’d shelter me whole block comfortably with a score of rooms left over to spare.”</p>
<p>Draco thought through all Gene’s speeches about the unethicality of inherited wealth. And excessive wealth. And those who hoarded it as though they deserved it.</p>
<p><em>When the people shall have no more to eat</em>, Gene would quote, <em>they will eat the rich</em>.</p>
<p>He didn’t think Terry would appreciate hearing that from him.</p>
<p>He didn’t think a Boot would want their anger at the rich cosigned by a Malfoy.</p>
<p>“If I don’t deserve this and you don’t want to do it,” he said, “then why do you even think you owe me your help?”</p>
<p>Terry’s eyebrows went up at that. “I don’t think I <em>owe</em> you <em>anything</em>,” they informed him. “What’d you ever do for me, after all?”</p>
<p>Draco considered, wondering whether the smart move would be to keep his mouth shut. “I let you into the Manor,” he said instead, climbing back up to his seat on the edge of the counter.</p>
<p>Terry wanted to say, <em>No, you didn’t. That was your father and three of his circle who let me through the front door. You weren’t even in the fucking </em>room<em> to watch while I licked their boots and kissed their hem and begged to serve them.</em></p>
<p>Terry just shook their head.</p>
<p>“Well, I allowed you to stay,” Draco amended. “I didn’t sound the alarm and tell them they were all idiots for thinking you were the eager loyal errand boy you were pretending to be.” He dragged a thumbnail over his bottom lip, frowning. “Men like that, they take it for granted that the lower classes exist to bend and scrape and serve. They just saw a Knockturn Alley gutterblood and didn’t have the imagination to think such a person might have an agenda of their own.”</p>
<p>“Don’t let yourself off too easy, dear,” Terry advised. “You were plenty happy to sing that song yourself till you realized <em>you</em> were disposable to them too.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>Draco wondered if this was the part where he was supposed to give the requisite apology, but something told him Terry wouldn’t welcome that now. Not yet.</p>
<p>Instead he said, “So you’re still in Knockturn Alley, then?”</p>
<p>Terry searched Draco’s face and seemed to find something there that let them let their guard down, just a little. They nodded. “Still in Knockturn Alley. Still at the dodgy end.”</p>
<p>“Knockturn Alley has a non-dodgy end?” Draco asked, his small smile offering the joking question as an olive branch.</p>
<p>“Sure.” Terry flashed a short smile back. “It’s whichever end <em>I’m</em> not on.”</p>
<p>Draco picked up one of the remaining rugelach from the plate on the counter beside him and took a bite. “I don’t imagine you’d welcome any observations about crabs in a bucket. Not from me.”</p>
<p>“No, that I wouldn’t. I’d just remind you crabs don’t come in buckets on their own, not without someone bigger putting ‘em in and keeping ‘em there.” The corner of their mouth twitched in the flash of a small sad smile. “But that’s more awareness of <em>that</em> sort of thing than I’d have expected of you. Before.”</p>
<p>Draco finished the rugelach and took another, needing something to do that wasn’t look at Terry’s perceptive gaze. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to learn new things,” he said. “And unlearn old ones.”</p>
<p>“Harry <em>said</em> you’d changed.”</p>
<p>Draco snapped his gaze back up, forgetting any pretense of aloof nonchalance. “Did he? What did he say?”</p>
<p>Terry raised their eyebrows, something triumphant shining in their eyes. “Ah, now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it.”</p>
<p>“You said you’d extrapolated from him that I’d gotten sexier,” Draco reminded them.</p>
<p>“Hmm, did I?” Terry asked, deliberately pretending to be obtuse while looking particularly pleased with themself.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s what I do, innit? Use the information I get to figure things out.”</p>
<p>“What information <em>did</em> you get?” Draco pressed. “What did he say about me?”</p>
<p>“Well, he certainly didn’t let on how desperate for his attention you are,” Terry commented. They sighed, somehow both fond and resigned all at once, and said, “This ain’t on me to fix for you two. I’m already doing a big enough job for you as it is, dear, and I’ve probably already said more here than I should anyway. But…” Terry sighed and shook their head, shrugging. “But let’s have a chat anyway, all right?”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Neville’s personal greenhouse was packed with shelves and tables of plants, some little sprouts just barely beginning to nudge their way out of the surface of their soil, others nearly reaching the ceiling. A young fruit tree grew out of the ground in one corner, its branches bearing cherries on the right, plums on the left, and apples in the middle.</p>
<p>Harry looked from the tree to Neville and back. “How… ?”</p>
<p>“Grafting,” Neville said. “It’s just botany, not magic.” He smiled. “Getting all three sections to bear fruit in January, though? <em>There</em>, I might have cheated a bit with magic, I’ll not lie.”</p>
<p>“Is that really cheating?”</p>
<p>“Maybe. A little bit.” Neville regarded his fruit tree with a look of respect. “But I reckon it all goes back to the first lesson I give my students.” He paused to pull down a flat of potted seedlings from one of the larger shelves. He inclined his head towards the second flat next to it. “Give us a hand and grab that for me, would you?”</p>
<p>Harry reached up for the second flat of seedlings. “The first lesson?” he prompted.</p>
<p>“Right, that,” Neville said, as they walked back out of Neville’s greenhouse and he led them to the door of Greenhouse One. “Lesson one: Herbology isn’t magic.”</p>
<p>Harry frowned, too distracted by that statement to think twice about following Neville into the old familiar greenhouse. “Pardon? Not magic? But—”</p>
<p>“But some plants are magical, aye, and some are dead important in potions and salves and tinctures. And some are dangerous, and some are deadly, and some do things what’d shock and confound a lot of Muggles. But <em>doing</em> Herbology? It’s not magic, Harry. It’s botany. It’s horticulture. Agriculture. All just gardening and farming.” He set the flat on the table in the middle of the greenhouse used for lessons and indicated for Harry to do the same. “Sure, sometimes you use magic here and there, but it’s like—If you were making dinner and happened to use magic to light the hob before you put the soup pot on, would you call cooking <em>magic</em>?”</p>
<p>“Depends on how good this soup is,” Harry joked, after setting down the plants he’d been carrying. But then he added, more thoughtfully, “You’re sure you’re not downplaying things?”</p>
<p>“You think I’m selling myself short by calling the thing I do <em>not magic</em>?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugged. He looked around the greenhouse, remembering his own Herbology lessons and how often he felt half a step behind, when other classes—ones that dealt in spells and wandwork—had come more naturally to him. “No,” he decided. “No, because it’s <em>hard</em>, isn’t it, knowing how to care for so many living things, and getting it right. And most of us couldn’t cut it if we had to take responsibility for all <em>this</em>.” He gestured at the greenhouse around them. “You’re not just drilling them on <em>Wingardium Leviosa</em> and putting the feathers back up on the shelf at the end of the day. You’ve got a whole world you’ve got to keep living once class is over every day. I could <em>never</em> do this.”</p>
<p>“Merlin help us, can you <em>imagine</em>,” Neville said, grinning. “But thanks, Harry. That’s exactly what I mean. It’s not selling a thing short to say that about it, as though being magical is all it takes to be more important.”</p>
<p>Harry looked at the two flats of potted plants. “If this was all you needed to do, then it really <em>was</em> just a ruse to get both of us out of the house.”</p>
<p>“Well, I wanted to talk to you as well,” Neville said, shrugging off his coat and sitting back against one of the long tables that ran along the edge of the greenhouse.</p>
<p>Harry hesitated for a moment before shrugging off his own coat and laying it on the table beside him.</p>
<p>The greenhouse interior was as warm as a spring afternoon on his skin.</p>
<p>“Talk about what?” he asked Neville carefully.</p>
<p>Neville looked placidly back at him. “About whatever’s happening between you and Draco Malfoy,” he said.</p>
<p>Harry gaped. “What?” he said. “<em>Nothing</em>. I don’t know what you’re—There’s nothing <em>happening</em> between us.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Harry,” Neville said. “But that’s—if you’ll pardon me saying—utter bollocks.” He shook his head with a rueful chuckle. “You two’ve been spending all night undressing each other with your eyes when you think the other’s not watching, without remembering to check if anyone <em>else</em> present might catch you out.”</p>
<p>“Wait, no, I… Shit.” Harry sank back against the middle table of seedlings, eyes wide.</p>
<p>“Harry. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’ve never known you to have a poker face.” Neville smiled at him. “You’re easier’n a book to read, most of the time. Malfoy, on the other hand…”</p>
<p>“<em>Does</em> have a poker face, I take it?”</p>
<p>“Aye. But not tonight, he hasn’t. Not for you.”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t know what Neville saw on his face in reaction, but apparently it gave him all the information he needed.</p>
<p>Neville took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking his head. “Ah, I <em>see</em>,” he said. “Well, it’s just…” He stopped, searching for the right angle to come at this. “How’ve you been, Harry? Since you and Ginny broke it off, I mean.”</p>
<p>“All right,” Harry said, knowing it sounded like a lie, but realizing it was far closer to true now than he’d let himself believe. “Or… mostly all right. Better now than before. It’s still strange sometimes, how life isn’t—the thing I’d assumed it was going to be, and now I’ve got to…” He worried a hangnail with his teeth, finally seeing the broad shapes of the thing he hadn’t quite wanted to look right at. “Now I’ve got to actually figure out what I want my life to be next.”</p>
<p>“Is this why you finally let yourself get kicked out of the Aurors?” Neville asked.</p>
<p>Harry stared.</p>
<p>“Temporarily,” Neville amended. “I know you’ve only been suspended, but—But maybe this is your chance to take a step back and take a good look on that place, and see if it’s what you truly want for this new life you’ll be building for yourself.”</p>
<p>“I don’t—” Harry bit at another fingernail, then shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You were asking about Malfoy, not the Aurors.”</p>
<p>“Aye, I was that. It’s only it paints a right big picture of things, when taken all together,” Neville told him. “I want to be sure these are things you <em>want</em>, and not just you making all manner of rash choices because you’re…”</p>
<p>“Prone to make rash choices?” Harry finished for him.</p>
<p>“I was going to say, ‘More lost and floundering than I realized.’” Neville made a face as if preemptively guilty for what he was about to say. “Getting suspended from the Aurors wouldn’t have been too surprising on its own for you—”</p>
<p>“It <em>wouldn’t</em>?”</p>
<p>“—but coupled with me watching you over dinner, I feel I ought to ask, because… Well, Draco Malfoy is quite an extreme choice for a rebound, is all.”</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>“It’s just, he… isn’t Ginny.”</p>
<p>“I’m well aware of that.”</p>
<p>“Nay, I mean he’s about as <em>not Ginny</em> as a person could be, isn’t he,” Neville said. “She’s forthright, he’s, er… rather difficult. She’s about as Gryffindor as you can be, he’s Slytherin to the bone. She’s petite and thin and athletic, he’s tall and soft. Freckles and suntan versus pale as milk. She’s warm, he’s cool and standoffish. She’s—”</p>
<p>“All right, all right, I get the picture,” Harry said. “But I don’t want to want someone for who they <em>aren’t</em>, Nev. I want to want someone for who they <em>are</em>. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it, as nothing’s <em>happened</em> between us yet.”</p>
<p>“<em>Yet</em>,” Neville said. “Look, Harry, I know nowt of your life as of late, so all I want to hear is you’re doing all right and this isn’t a cry for help, or a sowing of wild oats in the wrong field, or owt of that nature. If that’s not what this is and you’re certain of what you’re about, then I’ll trust you to do what’s good for you.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know that I’ve ever been <em>less</em> certain in my life,” Harry admitted. “Or <em>more</em> certain, all at once. It feels all tangled up and complicated, but also… somehow simple.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded thoughtfully. “All right,” he said. “Let’s hear all about it, then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry let out an appreciative whistle from where they’d nested themself sideways in Neville’s big yellow chair. “So a couple’s taken you on as their shared lover?” they asked. “How continental of you.” They said the last bit in a loose approximation of Malfoy’s moneyed drawl—or what it <em>used</em> to sound like, before years in Maine.</p>
<p>Draco rolled his eyes dramatically in an attempt to hide the fact he was blushing. “Well, when you put it <em>that</em> way.”</p>
<p>“I’m just repeating what you told me.” Terry studied them. “I take it you ain’t told Harry yet?”</p>
<p>Draco sat up straighter from his lounging posture on the couch, wary now. “Why do you say that?”</p>
<p>“’Cause if you had, I reckon it would’ve come up when we touched on me own nonmonogamy in conversation last week.”</p>
<p>Draco raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Are you saying that you <em>also</em> have… ?”</p>
<p>Shaking their head, Terry said, “<em>Gods</em>, no. I don’t want what you have, dear—Two whole full relationships to keep up with, maybe three if you’re lucky. What I want is just one person—<em>at most</em>—who doesn’t need me to be theirs and only theirs. Who doesn’t mind if sometimes I want to be with others. Who might do the same themself.”</p>
<p>“An open relationship,” Draco said.</p>
<p>Terry nodded. “It’s different than your polyamory, maybe, but it’s still important. And it’s what I need from someone if they want me to be with them.”</p>
<p>“My polyamory,” Draco said.</p>
<p>It felt foolish for a moment, the way he had spent the last year and a half trying not to put names to things he had, as though giving them names would make them real, and as though making them real would take them away from him faster.</p>
<p>“Yes, that,” Terry agreed. They studied him for a long moment, their gaze too serious and incisive for Draco’s liking. “He ought to be told, you know. Before anything happens.”</p>
<p>“You seem very confident of that possibility,” Draco hedged. “What did Potter say to you?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.”</p>
<p>“But you said—”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, you’re sexy now. Ain’t we covered that already?”</p>
<p>“Not as thoroughly as I’d like,” Draco replied.</p>
<p>“I see <em>someone’s</em> still vain as ever.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Draco said. “I haven’t changed <em>that</em> much. So I’m sexy now, am I? Is this <em>your</em> opinion or his?”</p>
<p>“You’ll have to ask Harry his own opinion for yourself,” Terry told him. “And as for <em>mine</em>, I ain’t wrong, am I?” They studied Draco thoroughly from head to toe and back up again. “Cor, I wish I had your thighs.”</p>
<p>Draco chuckled. “For that, I recommend a lot more seafood and pie.” Realizing that Terry had meant that more sincerely than perhaps they’d even intended, his sardonic expression gave way to something more serious, and he asked, “But you do, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Terry frowned. “No. Well, not exactly. Only sort of.”</p>
<p>“What <em>do</em> you want?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>The question seemed genuinely curious, not impatient or demanding.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a question that said: <em>Make up your mind and pick one.</em></p>
<p>It was a question that felt safe to answer.</p>
<p>“Sometimes I think I don’t actually know anymore,” Terry admitted. “Or maybe I <em>do</em>, but it’s too hard to look at most of the time because—Because I think I was starting to figure that out, but then…” They sighed and brushed their fringe from their eyes. “All’s I know is, I don’t want <em>this</em>.” They gestured down at themself, at their clothes, flicked at one of the buttons of their shirt in irritation. “I don’t <em>want</em> to put on shirts and neckties and men’s trousers. I don’t <em>like</em> feeling as if I want to claw me way out of me own skin when I get dressed for work every day. I don’t <em>like</em> not feeling I’ve any say in the person I see in the mirror anymore. I don’t like how it reminds me so much of all the things about how it feels living inside—inside <em>this</em>—that don’t… don’t <em>fit</em> right. I don’t like knowing this is meant as punishment, dressed up in polite language about office propriety and professional mores. Takes a firm hand to teach a Knockturn Alley guttersnipe how to behave respectable, don’t it?”</p>
<p>“Have you said this to anyone else? Have you talked to Harry? About how you feel about <em>that</em> part of your job, at any rate.”</p>
<p>“Nah, Harry don’t know.”</p>
<p><em>He does though,</em> Draco wanted to say, remembering the way Harry had talked about Terry’s dress code. <em>You can’t slip </em>everything<em> past him; he’s not stupid, you know.</em></p>
<p>“You could talk to him,” Draco said. “I think he’d listen.”</p>
<p>“And then go make trouble for me by trying to fix it,” Terry said, with a note of finality that told Draco not to push any harder. They shrugged as if it didn’t matter and adopted a nonchalant attitude. “So seafood and pie, hmm? That’s it?”</p>
<p>“And pancakes,” Draco offered. “A lot of pancakes. Whole milk cappuccinos; the foam is better. Matzo ball soup. French toast. Merv made some truly fabulous pierogi on Friday, baked in mozzarella. And so on and so forth. Essentially, I advise you start working in a diner.”</p>
<p>Terry grinned. “Probably helps if it’s run by someone who loves both you <em>and</em> cooking.”</p>
<p>Draco felt himself want to blush and smile at that. “I suppose that couldn’t hurt,” he allowed, then cleared his throat and conceded, “Of course, my advice wouldn’t work for you if <em>all</em> you wanted was thighs.” He ran a hand over his stomach with a self-deprecating raise of his eyebrow. “Which is what it sounds like you want. What you’re describing seems a little more…” His hands flowed through the air to suggest a silhouette: a slim-waisted torso curving out to the round sweep of hips and thighs.</p>
<p>“Maybe so,” Terry agreed, a defensive note creeping into their voice. “What if it is?”</p>
<p>“Then that would suit you. Then you should have it, if you can. Then maybe you should talk to someone about it.”</p>
<p>Terry chewed their lower lip for a moment, thinking, eyes cast away from Draco. “Luna’s told me about the Healers who specialize in that sort of thing,” they admitted. “You can get an appointment with one through St. Mungo’s, but… I dunno. I ain’t had the guts to look that one on straight in the eye yet, I reckon. What if I’m wrong and don’t want that after all? Worse, what if I'm <em>right</em>?”</p>
<p>“I don't remember you being someone to second guess themself,” Draco said.</p>
<p>“True. But look where that got me.” Terry forced a half-smile, realizing how close they had just come to touching the things only Draco could know anymore. “I think about it a lot,” they went on, changing the subject back, “but just because I think about something a lot, it doesn’t make it a good idea.” They shot Draco a warning look. “Don’t push any further right now, dear. Don’t make me sorry to have let you ask.” They shot Draco an impish knowing look. “And don’t change the subject back to what <em>I</em> think your favorite reckless Gryffindor thinks of you.”</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>“But nothing.” Terry regarded Draco with an amused shine in their eyes. “Merlin, you ain’t changed a bit. Never half as cool as you tried to play at, and never less so than when it comes to Harry Potter.” They stretched and propped their chin on one hand, elbow resting on the arm of the chair. “That said. Consider the subject closed with me. I ain’t meddling any further.”</p>
<p>Draco fought back every urge to protest, shooting Terry a churlish sulky look for how fast they could still read him for the things he wanted to keep hidden. “What about you?” he asked instead.</p>
<p>“What about me what?”</p>
<p>“Do you have a person? Or—or whatever.” Draco swept a hand in a loose wave, indicating that Terry should feel free to fill in the blanks themself as needed. “Your idea of having a chat was asking me a barrage of questions about myself, and I didn’t notice I hadn’t learned a single thing about your life in the process.” He cocked his head to one side. “That’s how you do it, isn’t it? Get information out of people?”</p>
<p>“They don’t catch the fact they’re only talking about themselves, because there’s nothing what makes ‘em feel more friendly and convivial than that. <em>Meself</em> is a lot of folks’ favorite subject.” Terry grinned. “<em>You</em> more’n most.”</p>
<p>Draco arched an eyebrow. “I notice we’re talking about me again.”</p>
<p>Terry sighed. “Fine. What was the question? Do I have a person?” They made a face. “Not sure it’s your business.”</p>
<p>“Not sure Merv and Tony are <em>yours</em>. I’m getting the vibe the answer is either very much <em>yes</em> or very much <em>no</em>. You don’t get cagey like this about things until they matter to you.” Draco paused. “At least, that’s how you <em>used</em> to be. I can’t speak to <em>now</em>.”</p>
<p>“No, you sure can’t.” Terry thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. I don’t think I do. Maybe, in another world, one where I were someone different, and also hadn’t just fucked everything up.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Draco hesitated. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, knowing it sounded awkward and maybe almost insincere, but he felt it was the least he could offer.</p>
<p>“To you?” Terry let out a little scoffing laugh. “No, I don’t think you’re the person to do that for me, dear. Considering everything.” They gestured between the two of them. “You know.”</p>
<p>Draco felt suddenly guilty. “You can’t <em>still</em> be hurt by that.”</p>
<p>Terry’s big round eyes went rounder, then narrowed, guarded with something like betrayal. “Gods, you’ve still no heart, have you.”</p>
<p>Draco drew in a sharp breath with the stinging shock of how much sharper that comment cut than it once would have, when something like that from Terry Boot would have rolled off like water, or maybe made him laugh, sour and nasty.</p>
<p>“No, I do,” he said. “I have one <em>now</em>. It’s just still maybe not a very good one.” He paused, gathering the nerve to reopen a part of his past he’d been hoping to put off having to look at, if only for just a little while longer. “Do you want to talk about all that, back when we last knew each other?”</p>
<p>Terry opened their mouth, closed it, and scrubbed a weary frustrated hand over their eyes. “What I <em>want</em>,” they said carefully, “is a cigarette on the porch.” They swung their legs over the edge of the big armchair and stood, crossing the room to put their leather jacket on. They turned back to look at Draco. “What I <em>need</em> is to hear <em>you</em> talk about all of that. But I can’t honestly say I want to hear it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Neville was still settled against one of the greenhouse tables, listening patiently as Harry talked, pacing back and forth, letting the floodgates inside him crack open as the relief of <em>telling</em> someone overtook him.</p>
<p>Not just <em>someone</em>.</p>
<p><em>Neville</em>.</p>
<p>Good, kind Neville. Trustworthy and caring Neville. Strong Neville. Practical Neville. Sweet idealistic Neville.</p>
<p><em>Safe</em> Neville, in a safe quiet green place, filled with the sweet smell of plants growing and fresh damp soil.</p>
<p>Neville, who had been there beside him, steady and dependable, for what was now most of Harry’s life.</p>
<p>He found himself saying things he hadn’t imagined admitting aloud, finding them <em>easy</em> to say, every sentence coming more honest and unafraid under Neville’s encouraging gaze.</p>
<p><em>I talked to Merv and Tony. About them and Malfoy. And I’m all right with that, I really am. If you’d asked me before if I would want to share someone with two other people, I would have said no. But I’ve thought—I’ve thought about so </em>many<em> things I never took the time to think about before, because it’s so much easier </em>not<em> to think, isn’t it? It’s so much easier to only let yourself want the things you’ve been told you’re </em>allowed<em> to want. And I’m allowed to be shit at doing what I’m told, right? Isn’t that what everyone’s always said about me?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>You should see him with them. They fit.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He put his arms around me when I was angry and wanted to cry. That fit too.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You should see his cottage. You should see all his books.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Honestly? You should see Merv and Tony too.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Merv is the kind of handsome that made me actually notice the kind of thing I usually don’t let myself notice me noticing.</em>
</p>
<p><em>And Tony is big and bearded and tattooed, and it’s a little intimidating, even though he isn’t intimidating himself—He’s just… Oh, bloody </em>hell<em>, he’s kind of sexy too.</em></p>
<p><em>I’m almost jealous of Malfoy for them. Except I’m </em>not<em>. I want him to be wanted, and I want… I don’t know </em>what<em> I want, I just know I want to be given a chance to want </em>something<em>.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>And that’s kind of bloody terrifying, isn’t it?</em>
</p>
<p><em>But the thing is, I </em>like<em> the person he is now. I </em>like<em> talking to him. Gods help me, I even like arguing with him.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>You should see the person he is now.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You should see him at the diner.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You should see him in that blue jumper. You should see him in the t-shirt he’s wearing now, you should see him in jeans.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You should see him grumpy and only half-awake in pajamas.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Have you ever been in the next room from someone taking a shower and you </em>can’t stop thinking<em> about how that person is in the shower?</em></p>
<p>“Nay, Harry, can’t say I have,” Neville said, failing to fight back an amused grin. “Not like that.”</p>
<p>“Right, of course not,” Harry replied. “I didn’t mean <em>you</em>; I just meant that more—what-do-you-call-it—rhetorically.”</p>
<p>“Well, in that case,” Neville said, “I <em>do</em> understand the general idea. Rhetorically.” He paused, thinking for a moment, his smiling expression turning serious. “Just be careful with him, Harry. You’ve a good heart. I don’t want to see you hurt.”</p>
<p>Harry furrowed his brow. “You think he’s going to hurt me.”</p>
<p>Neville sighed and went over to Harry, slinging an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into a half-hug tight against his side. “What I <em>think</em>,” he said, “is that I’ve been on <em>your</em> side for sixteen and a half years now. I know who you are. I know how much I care about <em>you</em>. But Draco Malfoy? Him I’ve only been on the same side as for about a day now. Let’s walk before we run on <em>that</em> one for me, all right?” He smiled and let Harry go. “Although I’ve seen enough of this new leaf to make me willing to watch you make your own choice here, which—”</p>
<p>“Isn’t always my strong suit.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I was going to say. But that too. I just don’t want you to—I dunno, let a pretty face cloud your judgment.”</p>
<p>“You think he’s pretty?” Harry asked.</p>
<p>“Harry, I’m ace, but I’ve got <em>eyes</em>. Aye, Draco Malfoy’s pretty. But he’s also a lot of other things as well.”</p>
<p>“Sarcastic and vain,” Harry offered.</p>
<p>“Insecure,” Neville added. “Difficult.”</p>
<p>“High-maintenance and contrary.”</p>
<p>Neville laughed. “All right, I stand corrected. You’re going in more clear-headed than I worried.” He linked his fingers through Harry’s, looking more serious now. “Now I’ve asked you that and got it sorted, away from the curious ears of Malfoy and Terry, I’d like to take you up to the school.”</p>
<p>Harry felt his fingers flinch in Neville’s grasp, but he didn’t let go. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” he said carefully, not quite meeting Neville’s eye.</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>Neville’s voice was quiet, gentle. Safe.</p>
<p>Neville, made to protect and comfort, too brave and too kind in ways too quiet for others to appreciate the way Harry had learned to, too late.</p>
<p>“Because,” Harry said, realizing he wasn’t sure what his real answer was. “Because. The last time I was here…”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“And what if it’s like that again. It’s still—It’s still that for a lot of our friends, our classmates. It’s still <em>too much</em> for them. What if it’s too much for me too?”</p>
<p>“Then we’ll turn back. I’ll take you back to sit on my couch by the fire, give you a blanket to wrap around yourself and a mug of chamomile tea to hold. I’ll put on one of the records you gave me and I’ll tell you about native plants of the Scottish highlands until you’re so warm and bored you fall asleep.”</p>
<p>“And what if it’s <em>not</em> too much?” Harry asked, the question slipping out just above a whisper.</p>
<p>“Then that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Harry felt his head shake, just once, curt and involuntary.</p>
<p>“Oh, Harry.” Neville started to let go of Harry’s hand, but Harry held on tighter. Wrapping his other arm around Harry again, he asked, “What do you think it means for you if you’re okay here after all?”</p>
<p>Harry didn’t like that question.</p>
<p>Harry didn’t want to answer it.</p>
<p>Except Neville was close and warm, the worn suede surface of his shearling-lined coat soft against Harry’s cheek, as Harry let himself lean against his friend. “It wouldn’t be fair of me, would it,” he said. “It would be selfish of me, it would be—It would be <em>unfeeling</em>, to be <em>okay</em> when so many <em>aren’t</em>, when so many never even got to fucking <em>leave</em>. They didn’t live to have the <em>choice</em> to come back or not… After everything, I don’t want to find out that I don’t <em>care</em>, that I’m <em>fine</em> seeing it again, or—gods—what if I’m <em>happy</em> to see it again, like some kind of heartless mon—”</p>
<p>“<em>Harry</em>.” Neville’s voice cut in, not sharp, but firm and softly commanding. “Stop. <em>You are not heartless</em>. You are about the most not-heartless person I’ve ever met.” He wrapped his arm tighter around Harry, not forcing Harry to look at him, letting Harry bury himself in Neville’s shoulder. “It’s just Hogwarts, Harry. It’s nowt but a school now. You don’t owe it to the dead to turn it to a graveyard for them. Time <em>passed</em> here while we’ve been away, same as time’s passed everywhere else. The leaves turn and fall in autumn, then new green buds come in spring. The grass grows. New flowers come up and bloom.” He gave Harry one last squeeze and let him go. “Which is it you’re afraid of? It not being okay, or it being okay?”</p>
<p>Harry chewed a fingernail, brow furrowed. “The second,” he admitted. “I’m used to—what happens when things <em>aren’t</em> okay. I can get through that all right.”</p>
<p>A flicker of concern passed over Neville’s face, but he decided to let that comment pass for now. Instead, he asked, “Which is it you’re <em>hoping</em> for?”</p>
<p>“The… The second as well.”</p>
<p>“And which do you <em>feel</em> like it’s going to be?”</p>
<p>Harry was quiet, biting his lower lip and looking out at the darkness beyond the glass greenhouse walls. He turned his gaze back to Neville and told him with the soft seriousness of a confession, “I’ve never loved anyplace as much as here. I’ve missed it <em>so much</em>, Nev.”</p>
<p>A warm smile spread like sun over Neville’s face. “Then come on, Harry. We’ll go up together.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco sat on the porch swing, nudging it forward and back with his toes against the floorboards, as Terry leaned back against one of the porch columns.</p>
<p>They fumbled in a pocket of their leather jacket for a pack of Sobranie Black Russians, sliding one out and lighting it.</p>
<p>Draco raised his eyebrows. “I see you’re still smoking Zabini’s brand.”</p>
<p>Terry chuckled a little. “And here I thought I didn’t get nothing out of that relationship. Fuck, if <em>that</em> weren’t a right bleedin’ catastrophe from start to end.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m aware.” Draco rocked the porch swing forward and back, a faint smirk on his face that wasn’t quite fond enough to be called <em>nostalgia</em>. “Although I also remember how Zabini used to brag to the rest of us how his boyfr—how you wanted to be tied up.”</p>
<p>Terry’s eyebrows shot up and they let out a surprised caustic <em>ha</em> at that. “That happened all of <em>twice</em>. He was a shite dom, I’ll have you know. Even taking into account us being just sixteen. He panicked less than halfway through, both times.”</p>
<p>“I pretended to be disgusted by the whole thing at the time,” Draco said.</p>
<p>“And now?” Terry asked, eyes curious and unblinking. “New improved Draco Malfoy, all reformed and grown up and sophisticated, with his two lovers?”</p>
<p>Draco shook his head. “I’m not <em>you</em>, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t <em>need</em> that. I don’t even usually want it. But we’ve dabbled, as I’m sure everyone does.”</p>
<p>“Dunno that <em>everyone</em> does. D’you reckon <em>Harry</em> has?” Terry grinned in mischief and delight.</p>
<p>Draco gave Terry a long cool look in response. “I feel you’re trying to bait me into a reaction there.”</p>
<p>Terry shrugged, remembering Harry’s awed thoughtful expression when they’d talked about the contents of Percy’s letter, as if a door in his head was being cracked tentatively open for the first time, and he wasn’t sure yet whether the things inside were even meant for him.</p>
<p>“Don’t know what makes <em>you</em> think I need that,” Terry said instead.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. It was just a sense I’d gotten. Especially when I think about that one day when we…” Draco swung forward and back, forward and back, not quite looking at Terry. “Should we talk about it?”</p>
<p>“About what?” Terry asked carefully.</p>
<p>“You <em>know</em> about what,” Draco said. “About whatever you want to call whatever happened between you and me when we were seventeen. All of it, not just the one day I happened to remember now.”</p>
<p>“Oh. That.” Terry’s façade of nonchalance was unconvincing, even in the half-dark of the porch, lit only by the light coming through the windows from inside. “I don’t know,” they hedged. “Maybe just start by telling me about the one specific day you’re thinking of.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t expect <em>that</em> to be where we started this conversation.”</p>
<p>Terry shrugged and looked at him expectantly.</p>
<p>They reached over to knock ash from their cigarette onto the ground over the porch railing, waiting for Draco to begin.</p>
<p>“It was the day when—Oh, it must have been the fourth or fifth time we’d…” Draco gestured between them, almost wishing Terry would offer him a cigarette as well, if only just for something to do with his hands. And wishing Terry would finish that sentence for him, because he wasn’t sure how they remembered it, considering how they clearly hadn’t wanted anyone else to even know, if Harry’s reaction was anything to go by.</p>
<p>Terry opened their mouth, then closed it again, hiding a cough behind their hand.</p>
<p>They waved a hand to Draco. “Please go on.”</p>
<p><em>Bastard</em>, Draco thought unhelpfully. <em>Leaving me out on my own here. Is this their idea of a penance?</em></p>
<p>“Do you even know what day I’m talking about?” he asked.</p>
<p>Terry thought for a moment, trying to feel out an answer they would be able to actually give. “The parlor,” they said. “Scones. Please, keep going.”</p>
<p>“Then you already know.”</p>
<p>“<em>Please</em>,” Terry said. “Please tell me anyway. I want—I want to hear about it.”</p>
<p>Draco knit his brow. “What if I’d rather hear your perspective?” he asked. “As I suspect mine is ten years outdated and only half-informed.”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head.</p>
<p>“The parlor,” Draco said. “Aunt Bellatrix had been with me and Mother in the parlor. You’d been across the hall with my father and a couple of the others, playing hopeful for some menial scrap of a job to prove how loyal and useful you could be. I knew you could all hear everything from there. I don’t remember exactly what was said. It all blends together after a while.”</p>
<p>Aunt Bellatrix had ranted to her sister that she’d raised Draco too coddled, that he wasn’t <em>hard</em> enough to be the soldier he was destined to be. As though every harsh punishment, every strict rule, every unattainable expectation set for him meant nothing, as if all that was kid gloves and kindly indulgences.</p>
<p>“Afterwards, upstairs,” Draco continued, looking into the middle distance in front of him, not at Terry, “a house elf brought a tray of scones and clotted cream.” He could see in the darkness beyond Neville’s front porch the echo of that day, the late afternoon sky coming in cold and gray through the high windows, streaked with rain. Terry had tucked into the scones like they hadn’t eaten in days, while Draco picked his apart to crumbs between his fingers, something inside him still shaking with rage and shame from his aunt’s words.</p>
<p>He hadn’t cried<em>. I don’t do that anymore</em>, he had thought, as though that were a victory. Terry had offered a few reassurances, only halfway sincerely, not really believing Draco Malfoy needed their pity. And then Draco had cut them off, saying—</p>
<p>“And what did you say to me then?” Terry asked.</p>
<p>Draco laughed, but it came out hollow with too much of the memory of that day caught inside it. “I think I told you to shut your bloody mouth, get your clothes off, and fuck my arse, you mouthy patronizing git,” he said. He grimaced. “Not the most elegant proposition I’ve ever given.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I’ve accepted plenty far <em>less</em> elegant,” Terry said. “Then what?”</p>
<p>“I bossed you around the whole time,” Draco said. “I was feeling so helpless and scared, but it came out rather spoiled and demanding.”</p>
<p>“You could be a haughty little brat when you had a mind to.” Terry wasn’t sure that was a helpful contribution, but it felt good to be allowed to say that aloud, at least.</p>
<p>“I still can.” The corner of Draco’s mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. “But I said some rotten things to you that afternoon, at first because I was feeling such a mean and hateful thing, and then because I—I saw how you reacted to being ordered about, and being told the things I said and called the things I called you. So. That’s why I suspected there might be something specific you need.”</p>
<p>Terry was quiet for a moment. “It’s nice to hear someone talk to me about this,” they said. “About—<em>us</em>. That time of me life. I’ve not had that before.”</p>
<p>“Maybe that’s because you don’t seem to have <em>mentioned</em> it to anyone else.”</p>
<p>“No,” Terry agreed shortly. “I haven’t.”</p>
<p>“You really didn’t like me, did you. Not that I can blame you for that.”</p>
<p>Terry sighed, looking so very tired. “That’s not it.”</p>
<p>“Remember the advice you gave me?” Draco asked. “Never fuck anyone you don’t want to, not for free.”</p>
<p>Terry forced a small laugh. “Ha, sounds like something I'd say.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t always follow it.”</p>
<p>“‘Course not. You and your self-loathing.”</p>
<p>“Neither did you,” Draco pointed out.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think you were such a bastard that you deserved to die a virgin. I thought…” They paused, trying to find a way to finish the sentence that would make it out of their mouth unstopped. “If that’s a thing someone can give someone else, maybe it’s worth it to give a good memory or two to take with ‘em when they’re shuffled off the mortal coil before they’re old enough to have any other sort of proper life.”</p>
<p>Malfoy pulled his gaze from the forest beyond Neville’s house to Terry’s face. “You thought I was going to die?”</p>
<p>“’Course I did,” Terry said. “Every one of us had our names in the hat to be drawn for the list of the dead. But you were probably the favorite to win a prize spot at the top.” They paused, a little mirthless grin passing over their face. “Well. <em>Second</em> favorite. We all know who would’ve won the Class of ‘98’s Most Likely to Die Before Graduation.”</p>
<p>“Don’t know if Most Likely to Betray the Entire Student Body is much better.”</p>
<p>“Sure made you memorable, I’ll grant that much.” Terry studied the cigarette butt in their hand. “Reckon I’d be Most Likely to End Up in Petty Crime or Prostitution.” They sighed and transfigured the cigarette into a feather, then leaned out over the porch railing and blew it from their fingertips out into the night.</p>
<p>They watched it tumble through the air until it had fallen from sight.</p>
<p>“What <em>did</em> you do after Hogwarts?” Draco asked. He didn’t say <em>after graduation</em>. He knew better. “I get the sense your current career as a civil servant is a fairly recent development.”</p>
<p>Terry regarded Draco. “Well. Let’s just say I <em>didn’t</em> become a petty criminal.”</p>
<p>It took Draco a moment to piece that together. “So you… <em>Oh</em>.”</p>
<p>“You know that advice I once gave you? Turns out the ‘not for free’ bit was the important part for me.” They scrubbed a hand over their eyes. “Merlin, I need a fucking drink.”</p>
<p>“You felt your only choice was to stay some kind of Knockturn Alley <em>demimonde</em>?”</p>
<p>“<em>Demimonde</em>,” Terry repeated, testing the word on their tongue. “Ha, I like that one. Has a much fancier ring than ‘two-Sickle whore.’”</p>
<p>Draco stopped nudging the swing gently back and forth and snapped his eyes to Terry’s face in concern. “I sincerely hope it wasn’t actually <em>two Sickles</em>.”</p>
<p>“Relax. It’s just an idiom, dear.” Terry was digging into an inner pocket on their jacket. “But don’t let’s take this as an invitation to go into the details of me salary at that gig, all right?” Pulling out a flask, they held it up to their ear and tipped it side-to-side to hear how full it was. They sighed and unscrewed the cap. “<em>Or</em> as an invitation for you to offer up a well-meaning list of uninformed suggestions on other things I could’ve done instead. Ain’t your place to act like you’ve any ground there. With what I am, with where I’m from, and with what everyone thought they knew about me, where <em>else</em> would I go but back to that?” They took a drink and swallowed with a slight grimace that told Draco all he needed to know about the strength of the flask’s contents. “So let’s skip it.”</p>
<p>“You don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>“Not to you,” Terry said. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”</p>
<p>“Who <em>do</em> you talk to?” Draco asked, before he could tell himself it wasn’t his place.</p>
<p>“Maybe I don’t owe <em>anyone</em> an explanation.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I meant.” Draco sighed. “What about your job with the Aurors? Do you owe me any explanation there?”</p>
<p>Terry went still, flask raised halfway. After a couple of seconds, they lowered it and studied Draco carefully. “In what sense?”</p>
<p>“What did you do there before sharing an office with Potter?”</p>
<p>“How would you know anything about that?”</p>
<p>“He gave me a sense of the timeline when we were talking in Maine.” Draco raised an eyebrow. “But thank you for confirming that.”</p>
<p>Terry took a drink. “I’m not talking about it,” they said shortly.</p>
<p>“Would your work by any chance have had anything to do with Dubenich showing up at my front door last sum—”</p>
<p>“<em>I said I’m not talking about it.</em>”</p>
<p>Their voice wasn’t angry.</p>
<p>Draco could have expected <em>angry</em>; he could have taken that and dished angry back.</p>
<p>But Terry’s voice was sharp with pleading and finality and note of something that Draco thought might be fear.</p>
<p>He didn’t know why fear.</p>
<p>He didn’t know what he’d done to cause that.</p>
<p>“Why not?” he asked, quiet and as close to gentle as he had ever managed to reach.</p>
<p>“I can’t tell you.” They didn’t look at Draco. They studied the flask in their hand, toying with the cap on its little metal hinge, but not closing it back up. They slipped a glance at Draco’s expression—the stubborn set of his mouth, the presumptuous tilt of his brows—and added, “I <em>can’t</em>. Just leave it at that, all right? Let’s just talk about… literally <em>anything</em> else.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They were only halfway up the lawn when Harry stopped, unable to make himself keep walking.</p>
<p>The castle stood before him, its every dark stone shape and line achingly familiar, its every window flickering with warm candlelight a bright invitation.</p>
<p>It was real again.</p>
<p>It was all real again.</p>
<p>
  <em>I used to stare out at that window up there when I stopped listening to Binns.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And the two on the tower over there look out from the Gryffindor Common Room.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That window was our fifth year dorm—Seamus once got us to bet him he couldn’t sneak out of it, but nobody would lend him a broomstick and he backed out. He still owes me three Sickles and a pumpkin pasty for that.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We waded in the lake over there on the first warm day of spring in third year. Neville slipped on an algae-covered rock and took Dean and Justin down with him.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There’s the Quidditch pitch, the Quidditch pitch, the Quidditch pitch.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I took the path there to owlery. To visit Hedwig. To write Sirius and Remus.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I crossed the lawn there to have tea with Hagrid.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Bill was attacked there.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Colin died there.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There’s an alcove in that turret with a window seat, where Ron and I would do our Astronomy homework so Hermione wouldn’t offer to fact-check it for us.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That corner leads to the corridor where Fred died.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That corridor leads to the room where I heard Crabbe burn to death.</em>
</p>
<p><em>That room was where I taught the DA, where I felt safe, where I </em>fit<em> for once in my life.</em></p>
<p>Neville put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and didn’t pull it away when Harry flinched at the unexpected touch.</p>
<p>Harry turned to look at him.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” Neville asked, searching his face.</p>
<p>Harry nodded. Then shook his head. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“What are you feeling?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>Neville kept his hand on Harry. “There’s not a right answer to that question, you know.”</p>
<p>“It’s not important,” Harry said.</p>
<p>“We both know that’s not true. You just don’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>“Are you like this with your students?” Harry asked, forcing a half-smile.</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” Neville said. “They don’t like it either.”</p>
<p>Harry let his gaze drift back up to the castle. He spent a long minute mapping its silhouette again, then said, “I thought I was ready for one or the other. For this to feel bad <em>or</em> good. I hadn’t planned on <em>both</em>.” He stared up at Hogwarts, biting his thumbnail. “It’s—I’m remembering all these awful things, but it’s not—It’s not like when it’s <em>bad</em>, you know?”</p>
<p>Neville furrowed his brow, but not as though he didn’t understand. As though he understood far too well. “What’s it like when it’s bad?”</p>
<p>“Bad,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Neville waited.</p>
<p>“Well, I can still breathe for one.”</p>
<p>Harry sounded so matter-of-fact that for a moment, Neville was sure he was trying to put on a brave face, trying to seem nonchalant, trying to keep Neville from worrying.</p>
<p>But, no, Harry didn’t have the poker face for that. He never had.</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>Harry</em>.” Neville gave his shoulder a squeeze.</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Harry said. “<em>I’m</em> fine.” He gestured up at the school with an open palm. “This is—This is okay. It’ll be okay. I told you it wasn’t bad, this, here, right now.”</p>
<p>“But other things are,” Neville said.</p>
<p>“Don’t talk about that.” Harry closed his eyes. “Don’t try to bring that into this, or then… Or then this might start to—become bad too. And I can’t have <em>that</em>, not <em>tonight</em>, not <em>here</em>, not with <em>this</em>, and <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>He looked and saw his grown friend, Professor Longbottom, in the winter moonlight.</p>
<p>And his friend, Neville, the boy standing in torn grass under a high sun, dark blood matting his caramel hair and drying on his cheeks.</p>
<p>Neville was studying Harry in return, with a look of recognition, as if he knew what he saw without Harry having to explain.</p>
<p>Malfoy had looked at him the same way in Maine, standing under a streetlamp on a quiet sidewalk, watching the shadows of memory curl up around Harry without his invitation.</p>
<p>Malfoy knew, the way someone who lives in the same house would know.</p>
<p>Neville knew too.</p>
<p>Harry caught his breath but it hitched and stuck in his chest when he tried to let it out again. His shoulders went tense under Neville’s hand.</p>
<p>Neville put his other hand on Harry’s other shoulder.</p>
<p>“Harry, take a deep breath. With me, like this. Just follow my lead.” He took a breath in, held it for a couple seconds, then let it out slowly. “Good. Good, keep doing that. I have to… do that sometimes too.” Meeting Harry’s eyes, he said, “Listen. What do you hear?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Harry said. Then: “The wind. Quiet.”</p>
<p>“Quiet,” Neville repeated in agreement. “It’s nighttime.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Not midday. What do you see?”</p>
<p>“Hogwarts. The windows all lit up with candles and fireplaces, like every night when we were at school. The grounds.”</p>
<p>“Nobody on them,” Neville said.</p>
<p>“The grass is crunchy,” Harry said. “Dry. Covered in frost. Not green. The dirt underneath is hard and frozen, not soft.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “Aye, and the trees are bare of leaves.”</p>
<p>“The lake is frozen around the edges. And it’s quiet—There’s not… You know. The sounds. That I remember.” Harry swallowed. “I have dreams. Sometimes.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “But this isn’t one of them. This is real. What do you smell?”</p>
<p>“<em>Smell?</em>” Harry repeated. He took another deep breath in and out, thinking. “Cold. Winter has a smell. And—And woodsmoke. From the chimneys, just a little, on the breeze.”</p>
<p>“And you’re safe and years older,” Neville said. “I’m safe and years older. Ron and Hermione are home together, safe. Luna is safe. Ginny is safe, home with James, and Albus, and Lily. Bloody <em>hell</em>, Harry, even <em>Draco Malfoy</em> is safe and grown. And <em>in my house</em> as a welcome guest, Hecate help us all.” He ventured a grin at Harry.</p>
<p>Harry felt himself smile back.</p>
<p>“Are you all right?” Neville asked. “We can go back now if you need.”</p>
<p>“Can we go inside?” Harry replied.</p>
<p>He hadn’t meant to ask for that. But the homesick yearning he’d had since they began to cross the lawn had finally broken through everything else, like sun through storm clouds.</p>
<p>Neville nodded. “I’m a <em>respected member of the staff</em>,” he said, with a joking pretension. “I can go anywhere I damn please.”</p>
<p>When Harry hesitated at the foot of the stairs leading up to big doors at the main front entrance, Neville guided them to a small side door used mostly by staff, leading into the back corridors near the kitchen. They followed those out to the hall that held the Charms classroom, quiet and dim in its after-hours emptiness.</p>
<p>A few portraits stirred with mild interest at their arrival. Two women in an oil painting whispered curiously to each other, but none addressed the two men who now stood among them.</p>
<p>“Where do you want to go, Harry?” Neville asked.</p>
<p>Harry reached out and touched the wall beside him, palm flat against the cool stone. “I dunno,” he admitted. “I just wanted to feel what it was like to <em>be here</em> again.”</p>
<p>“How does it feel?”</p>
<p>“Not like coming home,” Harry said. “Or I don’t think so, anyway. It feels complicated.”</p>
<p>“Coming home can be complicated,” Neville said. “I know it’s been for <em>me</em>, sometimes.”</p>
<p>“It feels complicated,” Harry repeated. “Complicated, and full of memories, and sad, because not all of them are good. And sad because so many of them <em>are</em> good, but they’re over now. But also <em>not</em> sad. But also—Good. It feels good.” He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I’ve never had a home to come home to before. I don’t know what it should feel like.”</p>
<p>“For you?” Neville said. “I imagine coming home for you would feel very much like this.” He took his gaze around the corridor thoughtfully. “Nay, scratch that. For <em>you</em>, coming home would feel <em>exactly</em> like this.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco watched Terry take a long drink.</p>
<p>He raised an eyebrow and said, “All right. Here’s something else to talk about then: Are you still getting mileage out of that line about medieval crop rotation?”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>that’s</em> where you’re taking this? Bloody hell, you’re still as relentless a pain in the arse as you ever were.”</p>
<p>“You <em>did</em> have quite a lot of wine at dinner,” Draco pointed out, with a little more judgement than tact in his tone.</p>
<p>“You <em>gave</em> me yours.”</p>
<p>“Well, I hadn’t considered the possibility that things may not have changed much after all over the last ten years.” Draco sighed and tucked a tendril of hair behind his ear. “That metaphor was wearing thin even then.”</p>
<p>Terry took a deep breath and closed their eyes for a moment, telling themself not to lash out at Draco, the way they had with Percy.</p>
<p>“This is who I am. Take it or leave it,” they said.</p>
<p>The way they had with Percy.</p>
<p>“Drunk isn’t a personality trait,” Draco replied, cool and serene.</p>
<p>Terry’s eyes narrowed. “Ooh, look at you, thinking you know things.”</p>
<p>Draco was unimpressed. “Terry. You have a flask of whiskey in your jacket pocket. It’s a Tuesday.”</p>
<p>Terry didn’t answer. They didn’t think it would win them any points to say, <em>It’s just for work.</em></p>
<p>“I assume this is another thing for which you don’t owe anyone an explanation,” Draco said dryly.</p>
<p>“You’ve only been back about two minutes, dear. Don’t act like you know things.”</p>
<p>“I know the impression I’m getting,” Draco replied. “Which is that the apple doesn’t fall <em>quite</em> as far from the Boot family tree as I might have hoped.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you try’n start in on me,” Terry shot back. “You ain’t holding any cards with me, and besides—Besides, life’s hard, and we’re all just whistling past the graveyard on our <em>best</em> days, ain’t we?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Christ, Terry. You’re clever enough to come up with something more original than <em>that</em> tired chestnut.” Draco pushed his toes against the porch floorboards, nudging the swing a few inches back, the back forward. “I can’t possibly be the first person to mention this.”</p>
<p>Terry didn’t answer.</p>
<p>“You share an office with Potter.”</p>
<p>“I’m careful around him.”</p>
<p>Draco thought of Harry’s passing mention of Terry’s late mornings. <em>Not that careful.</em></p>
<p>“But not around me,” he said.</p>
<p>“You don’t matter so much,” Terry said. “You already know more’n anyone else. I can’t ruin your opinion of me, can I? But Harry… Harry, he ain’t like <em>us</em>. He’s <em>good</em>. And it <em>matters</em> to me how he sees me.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Draco said, “I’m starting to know that feeling, yes.” He gave Terry a long appraising look. “You’re going to leave your job.”</p>
<p>“Not before I’ve seen this through. Don’t worry about <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“That wasn’t what I meant.”</p>
<p>Terry sighed and screwed the cap back on the flask of firewhiskey, but didn’t put it away. “So what if I do? What’s it matter to you?”</p>
<p>“What will you do then?” Draco asked. That wasn’t his real question, but he felt he should approach <em>that</em> with a slow tread and careful words. As though Terry wouldn’t catch where he was going two steps before he got there.</p>
<p>“Dunno.” Terry shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Probably go back to me old gig. I’m still living under Sprewit’s wing, after all.”</p>
<p>Draco had no idea who Sprewit was and didn’t care. “Is that what you <em>want</em> to do?”</p>
<p>Terry shot him a sharp look. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m worth more’n that.”</p>
<p>“I don’t feel I need to waste my breath telling you something you ought to already know,” Draco informed them coolly.</p>
<p>“That’s not how you felt a minute ago.”</p>
<p>“So you <em>do</em> agree with me there.” He shot a meaningful glance at the flask still held in Terry's hand, eyebrows raised.</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Terry warned.</p>
<p>“They <em>do</em> say the first step is admitting you have—”</p>
<p>“Shut up. Has Harry seen this side of you?” Terry asked, shoving the flask back into the inner pocket of their jacket. “Recently, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Which side would that be?”</p>
<p>“The spiteful one.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Draco said. “<em>Ad nauseum</em>.”</p>
<p>“Boy’s got it bad then,” Terry muttered under their breath.</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, I’m an asshole and I haven’t changed in that regard. I’m <em>aware</em>. Let’s not keep reviewing <em>that</em> obvious fact about me, shall we? There’s no new ground to tread there and there hasn’t been for years,” Draco said. And then before Terry could retort or change the subject for themself, “You didn’t apply for it, did you?”</p>
<p>Terry didn’t change their casual posture, lounging back against the porch railing, but something in the lines of their frame went taut and guarded at that. “Apply for what?” they asked warily.</p>
<p>“Your job,” Draco told them, unable to stop a note of impatience from creeping into his voice. “I know from Potter that the two of you have been kept in what sounds like a meaningless holding pattern, as though they don’t want to let either of you off the payroll but don’t have any use for you either. And—as has been established, also by Potter—this isn’t your first position with the Aurors. You worked elsewhere in the department first.” He made a slow show of stretching his hands out in front of him and studying his fingernails. He didn’t quite have the nerve to look directly at Terry as he forced them down this path. “I didn’t think you’d be one to voluntarily apply for a career with the Aurors, given your background and your general… <em>issue</em> with authority. And you’re hardly their model recruit, even for an administrative civilian position.”</p>
<p>“Given me background,” Terry repeated, caution in every line of their face.</p>
<p>“Precisely. Unless your background happened to give you <em>something very specific</em> that would be of use to them.”</p>
<p>Draco couldn’t look up at Terry standing just a few feet away. He looked at his own hands folded in his lap, at the boards of the porch floor at his feet, at the toes of his boots.</p>
<p>Even without seeing them, Draco could <em>feel</em> how still and quiet Terry had gone.</p>
<p>Maybe only ten seconds passed, but to each of them, it felt like a year.</p>
<p>“Specific like what?” Terry asked, voice barely louder than a whisper.</p>
<p>“Dubenich found me over the summer,” Draco said.</p>
<p>They weren’t looking at each other.</p>
<p>Terry kept Draco carefully in their periphery, as though what they learned as a child might apply here and dangerous words might lead to blows.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to take that up with Dubenich, then.”</p>
<p>Terry’s mouth felt dry.</p>
<p>They wanted to reach back into their pocket.</p>
<p>They were afraid to move.</p>
<p>Draco took a deep breath, eyes still fixed on his own hands. “Can I see it?”</p>
<p>He was surprised how calm his voice sounded.</p>
<p>Terry took a while to answer, visibly weighing their options, before finally deciding that Draco wasn’t fool enough to buy evasion or willful misunderstanding.</p>
<p>They both knew what he was asking.</p>
<p>“What do you want to see?” Terry asked anyway, unable to bring their voice above a whisper.</p>
<p>
  <em>This was a mistake. Shouldn’t never have let Neville leave us to talk.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Of course he’d want to talk about </em>this<em>. He ain’t had nobody else who could touch this part of his past since it were still the present, all those years ago now.</em></p>
<p>“You <em>know</em> what,” Draco told them, with a softness uncannily close to sympathy, as though that would make this feel less heartless. It didn’t. “Terry. May I see your Dark Mark?”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The halls of Hogwarts were just as Harry remembered them being in winter. It was castle-cold with drafts of air seeping in through windows and under doors, but with beacons of preternatural warmth pulsing out from the candles on the walls and heavy centuries-old tapestries muffling only some of the chill air.</p>
<p>Neville let Harry take the lead, following him as he wandered, still knowing every turn and stairwell and doorway as if he had never been away. He kept away from the main entrance hall, the Great Hall, the hospital wing, the corridor leading to Gryffindor Tower, and every time he heard footsteps up ahead, he stopped and quietly redirected them before they were seen.</p>
<p>“Maybe I should’ve worried less about how much you’d sneak out after hours,” Neville commented. “You’re bloody <em>good</em> at it.”</p>
<p>Harry grinned back, a little sheepishly. “I just don’t feel like running into anyone right now,” he explained. “But—Yeah, I s’pose I wasn’t too bad at it. Most of the time, anyhow.”</p>
<p>Their meandering through the quiet halls and chambers eventually took them to the top of the Astronomy Tower, out under the vast blanket of the night sky.</p>
<p>Neville sat on the stone bench built into the tower, the one Sinistra held her lessons from. Harry was sitting in one of the crenels along the edge; he imagined Sinistra would have taken about a hundred points from Gryffindor if she’d caught him doing that as a student.</p>
<p>“So,” Neville said. “The Aurors.”</p>
<p>Harry heaved a loud sigh, filled with good-natured aggravation. “Damn it, Nev, haven’t you had me deal with enough tonight without throwing <em>that</em> in too?”</p>
<p>“I’ve a right to know what I’ve just let myself get tangled in,” Neville pointed out.</p>
<p>“It’s the Aurors,” Harry said. “Just picture what you remember from when you were there. Nothing’s changed much since then.”</p>
<p>“Harry. They tried to tell Malfoy he could have been released on bail.” Neville paused. “Although you’re right. Maybe that’s not so different from what I remember. I’d have believed at least a few of them might pull a trick like that on someone who wouldn’t know the law any better to protest. I just never caught any of ‘em doing <em>this</em> firsthand myself, not until now.”</p>
<p>“Wait, hang on,” Harry said. “Malfoy said—But they’d have to have officially arrested him for a crime first, and even <em>then</em>, it would have to be something serious enough to warrant bail. He <em>wasn’t</em> arrested, was he?”</p>
<p>“Nay, that he <em>wasn’t</em>,” Neville confirmed, anger clouding his face.</p>
<p>“But what’s a technicality like <em>that</em> to the Auror Department,” Harry muttered.</p>
<p>“Sometimes I just felt like—” Neville sighed. “Fuck the whole lot of ‘em, you know? Present company excluded. Why are you even still there?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Where else could I go? What else could I <em>do</em>?” Harry wrapped his arms around himself. “If I were somebody else… If I weren’t me, I might have that kind of freedom. I’m so <em>tired</em> of being Harry Potter, Nev.”</p>
<p>“Then don’t be,” Neville said. “Be yourself instead.” He dug in his pockets and produced a pair of plums that Harry hadn’t noticed him picking from the tree in his greenhouse.</p>
<p>He tossed one to Harry, who leaned back to catch it right before it sailed through the crenellation, grinning at the satisfying way it landed to fit perfectly in his palm.</p>
<p>“Why did <em>you</em> join?” Harry asked, turning the plum over and over between his fingers. “Because of Ron and me?”</p>
<p>“Aye, that was part of it,” Neville agreed with his easy honesty. “That, and because it sounded right at the time. Helping people. Protecting them. Doing good. I didn’t… I didn’t really know how law enforcement <em>worked</em>, see. For all the things I’d been through in other parts of life, I’d never seen <em>that</em> firsthand. I lived out on the moor with my <em>grandmother</em>; it was so easy to just believe what you were told about Aurors being good and heroic and there to help, when you never saw nowt to contradict that for you. It was… sheltered and naïve of me, I suppose. I never ran across the law myself, so I never thought to doubt what I was told of it.”</p>
<p>“<em>I</em> did. Run across them, I mean.” Harry studied the plum and took a bite. It was sweet yet tart, dripping juice onto his fingertips. “But those were Muggle police, in the summers I was home, especially after… after fourth year. I would go for walks at night, when I couldn’t sleep. When I had nightmares. When I couldn’t be in <em>that house</em> a minute longer. And sometimes—Sometimes, someone would stop me. And he’d question what I was doing, where I thought I was heading, he’d see <em>me</em>”—Harry gestured broadly at himself, at his own face—“walking out after dark on a quiet suburban street, all those tidy houses and their tidy lawns, and not believe there was any chance <em>I</em> could live <em>here</em>. Someone who looked like <em>me</em> couldn’t possibly belong in a nice neighborhood like—like that.” He licked the plum juice from his fingertips. He felt his hands wanting to shake from anger, and shame, from the memory of that, and how it lived with all the other memories of Little Whinging that tangled themselves together inextricably like a giant dark knot. “<em>I</em> never thought it was a nice neighborhood,” he said. “I never saw <em>anything</em> of the good upstanding citizens I heard so much about.” He frowned down at his hands in his lap. “Sometimes they’d tell me to give them my address, as if to catch me in a lie. Sometimes they’d escort me home when I gave it. Tell my uncle they found me <em>wandering</em>. Think they were doing the right thing by taking me back there. <em>That’s</em> what I had seen of the police. People whose idea of order was putting everything back in the place they thought it belonged, whether or not it was good, whether or not it was fair, whether or not…” Harry shook his head. “Somehow I thought the Aurors would be different.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Because they were wizards,” Harry said, letting out a little hollow laugh. “Because the Muggle police were out <em>there</em>, in <em>that</em> world. And I thought things were <em>better</em> in the wizarding world. More fair. Because they were so much better for <em>me</em> than where I’d come from, I guess. So I just believed… I dunno, that everything here would be good and bright in all the ways the rest of the world wasn’t. Which was stupid of me, maybe.”</p>
<p>Neville gave him a little sorry smile. “Harry,” he said, “we’re the society what made Voldemort. More to the point, we’re the society as would build itself a place to let someone like him take <em>root</em>, believe he was <em>right</em>, find plenty of people who agree with him, to like the sound of what he said, to decide to follow him when given the chance. And for other folk to think themselves decent and right afterwards, after the First War, pretending not to know what they knew—to let Lucius Malfoy back onto boards of directors, to let him put his <em>name</em> on a plaque at <em>St. Mungo’s</em>. To let things go back to the way they were before, even though <em>the way they were</em> made room for all this in the first place. And just because we’ve tried and sentenced all the surviving Death Eaters doesn’t mean everything’s been fixed this time around. As I had to learn.”</p>
<p>Harry nodded. “We’re still doing all that,” he agreed, his voice coming out hard but defeated. “We’re just pretending we’re not. The things and people we’re making a big show of going after aren’t the actual problems that need fixing.” He took another bite of his plum, thinking over part of what Neville had just said. “D’you think if you’re a Death Eater, there’s no room after <em>that</em> to allow you back in? Like they did after the first time, with so many of them—the Malfoys, Crabbe and Goyle’s fathers, and Nott’s father, and Karkaroff, and—and Snape. Would it really be a mistake to ever do that for <em>any</em> of them ever again?”</p>
<p>Neville thought for a few moments. “Depends on the Death Eater.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Terry stood frozen at Draco’s words.</p>
<p>All these years, a part of them yearned to have someone remember the way Draco Malfoy would. But now that they were finally faced with that, they felt as if the ground pitched underfoot, as if they might be sick, as if they wanted to scream, flee, claw at Draco, at themself, curl into a sobbing ball until the world disappeared.</p>
<p>They looked away, their breath coming hitched and shallow.</p>
<p>They dug the pack of cigarettes from their pocket again with trembling fumbling fingers and almost dropped their wand lighting one.</p>
<p>“No,” they said finally. Just one word, not an admission of anything, not a disclosure of forbidden information. Thank gods they were still allowed to have <em>no</em>.</p>
<p>“Look,” Draco said, shrugging off the left side of his coat.</p>
<p>Terry watched, their only movement a slight raise of the eyebrows. “What’s this, ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?’ Nice try, but I’ve been around the block too many times to fall for <em>that</em> game.” The wry sarcasm came out as if someone else was speaking for them. Their mouth felt dry. There seemed to be a dull rushing sound in their ears. They couldn’t think around their own heartbeat, echoing from somewhere in their own throat.</p>
<p>Draco pushed the left sleeve of his cardigan up to his elbow.</p>
<p>Terry’s eyes went rounder. They started to say something, but stopped. “Tell me what happened,” they managed.</p>
<p>Draco saw the shock barely held back on Terry’s face and thought back to McLaggen’s reaction back in the interrogation room. And what he had let slip. “Tell me what <em>you</em> think happened.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Terry said, so clearly lying that they almost seemed to be asking Draco to notice. They began to move forward towards him, then stopped.</p>
<p>Draco moved over from the middle of the bench to make room, tilting his head towards the vacant spot he’d opened for them.</p>
<p>Terry sat. They felt dizzy.</p>
<p>Draco held out his arm for them.</p>
<p>They bent down to study the Dark Mark, but didn’t touch it.</p>
<p>“What happened?” they asked again. “I need to—” They straightened up and turned their face away for a moment, taking a deep breath. “I need to know the answer to that.”</p>
<p>“Are you afraid it’s something the Aurors did when they used it to reach me?” Draco asked, knowing he was about to push too hard and not caring. “Something you were involved in, perhaps?”</p>
<p>Terry caught their breath. “I… I don’t—”</p>
<p>“Want to talk about that?” Draco finished for them. “And what about where you might have factored in? Wait, no, let me guess: You don’t want to talk about that either.”</p>
<p>Terry’s hands curled into fists. They let out a little gasping cough, like something caught in their throat, and shivered, though not from the cold.</p>
<p>They looked at Draco.</p>
<p>Their eyes were so wide, so wide.</p>
<p>“No,” Draco said, the truth clicking into place. “You say you don’t <em>want</em> to. But you <em>can’t</em>, can you?”</p>
<p>Terry was quiet for a moment. “No,” they agreed softly. “I can’t.” And before Draco could respond: “Harry, he don’t know. Neville neither.”</p>
<p>“About which part? Your first job with the Aurors? Or why you got it?” Draco looked at them. If he were like Tony, he could brush Terry’s hair back from their eyes with his fingers. If he were like Merv, he could entwine his fingers with theirs. But he was Draco Malfoy, and he could not bring himself to believe that Terry Boot would welcome that from <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Terry whispered. “He don’t know nothing. <em>Nobody</em> does.”</p>
<p>“Nobody <em>can</em>,” Draco hazarded, beginning to see the shape of what had happened and hoping he was wrong. But knowing he wasn’t. “Can they.”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head.</p>
<p>“What is it? A Vow of Secrecy?”</p>
<p>Terry swallowed. When Draco was half-sure they weren’t going to respond, they carefully repositioned the hand on their lap to hold up two fingers, tucking the others under.</p>
<p>“<em>Christ</em>,” Draco said. “How does <em>nobody</em> know?”</p>
<p>“You’re the only—the only one left what knows enough about me to know there’s anything to hide.”</p>
<p>They didn’t say, <em>But somebody </em>does<em> know</em>.</p>
<p>They didn’t say, <em>Percy cared enough for me to put in the work to figure it out</em>.</p>
<p>“What can’t you talk about?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>Terry let out a sharp little laugh. “Now <em>that’s</em> a bleedin’ stupid question,” they said, taking a drag on their cigarette. “Five points from Slytherin.”</p>
<p>“Shall I just assume the answer is ‘everything’ and proceed from there?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>Terry gave them a small nod.</p>
<p>“I thought they’d need access to a Dark Mark in order to figure out how to, ah, reverse engineer parts of it,” Draco told them, figuring that was as good a starting point as any. “And then Potter mentioned you’d been working for the Aurors, but didn’t start sharing an office with him until around the time Dubenich showed up in Maine to gloat at me.”</p>
<p>“Danila don’t <em>gloat</em>,” Terry murmured. “You’re thinking of McLaggen.”</p>
<p>“Act imperious and judgmental, then.”</p>
<p>“All right. That he <em>does</em> do.”</p>
<p>“And as much as they have all the Death Eaters they could want in Azkaban, you’d need a willing participant to have even a hope of getting into this thing,” Draco said, rubbing a hand over his own left forearm. “At least, I assume so. From what I managed to do to myself when I tried to remove mine without any foresight or research.”</p>
<p>Terry’s eyebrows shot up.</p>
<p>“I was desperate,” Draco explained.</p>
<p>“What was it like before you went off being desperate and stupid?” Terry asked. “All faded and pale scar-pink?”</p>
<p>Draco nodded.</p>
<p>“You bloody idiot.” Terry shook their head, but there was a little begrudging affection in their voice.</p>
<p>“Potter <em>also</em> didn’t think it was one of my better decisions.”</p>
<p>“And think of all the competition it’s got,” Terry said.</p>
<p>“Nobody’s accusing me of being a bastion of good judgment,” Draco told them. “Does the <em>everything</em> you can’t talk about extend to whatever that misguided thing was between us, or do you just not want to acknowledge that ever happened? Not that I’d blame you, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“I would have no issue acknowledging anything,” Terry said carefully.</p>
<p>“Fuck.”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Terry agreed, putting their cigarette to their lips.</p>
<p>“You can’t tell me about what actually happened that day, can you?” Draco asked. “At the Manor, in the library.”</p>
<p>Terry shook their head. “Nobody told you?”</p>
<p>“No. I think they thought I might be a liability. I think some of them thought me weak-willed and emotional.”</p>
<p>“I think they usually call that being seventeen years old,” Terry murmured.</p>
<p>“Yes, well. All I knew was something happened and Old Mulciber was dead and you were being rubbed in the faces of the Death Eaters who’d been letting Voldemort down: <em>If </em>this<em> rookery urchin of the lowest possible birth can prove themself worthy, then what excuse could </em>you<em> possibly have to give for your shortcomings?</em>”</p>
<p>“Prove himself,” Terry corrected him in a whisper, in as close as they could come to saying, <em>Yes, I remember. Yes, I can still feel those long cold fingers grasping me shoulder like a vice; I can still remember staring them all down, feeling like an object on display, like I’d just given up being a person for this; I can remember grinding me teeth so damn hard for how hard it burned under me skin when it was fresh.</em></p>
<p>“I told Potter how things were at the end,” Draco went on, an empty calm to those words. “I told him it was all falling apart inside. Every decision more stupid and desperate than the last, with only perhaps three or four people still allowed to have any say in what those decisions were. The most dangerous and angry and hateful of them, the least measured, the least reasonable—”</p>
<p>“You don’t actually think <em>that</em> was the main problem, do you?”</p>
<p>“No. But it brought us to a point where Voldemort could kill an elderly follower and make you a Death Eater all as some sort of petty power play in a nest of people who treated all that like it was just any other Thursday afternoon.”</p>
<p>Terry let out a choked little laugh at that.</p>
<p><em>You think </em>he<em> killed Mulciber?</em> they wanted to ask.</p>
<p>That evening, ten years ago, Terry sat in the corner of the Malfoy library, quiet and obedient. They had been there so long they were half-sure that most of the occupants in the room had forgotten their presence entirely.</p>
<p>They were merely there to serve, after all.</p>
<p>Servants weren’t people. They were fixtures. Furniture. Objects.</p>
<p>The Dark Lord in the high winged armchair with the Malfoy family crest embroidered in silver thread on the upholstery. Selwyn at his side, murmuring his obsequience with that smile he had, as though he were mentally sharpening a blade and measuring the softest places to stick in it the others. The Mulcibers, father and son. The older in an armchair, wool blanket in his lap, a cup and saucer of translucent bone china rattling softly in his unsteady hands. The younger pacing in front of the fireplace, lit to a blazing heat in the mild spring weather.</p>
<p>Pettigrew was dead. Bellatrix and the Malfoy family nursed their wounds and hurt pride elsewhere, blamed for their failure to keep the stronghold of the Manor as impenetrable as they promised.</p>
<p>The fire burned. The elder Mulciber mumbled to himself. The younger paced. The Dark Lord pontificated softly through his favorite speeches about glory and restored order. Selwyn nodded along.</p>
<p>And then the Dark Lord coolly asked Agravain Mulciber to please kill his father.</p>
<p>Terry wasn’t sure whether there was something specific to spark that order. They had been fighting off the urge to doze in the dim shadowed corner where they sat, in the cloying warmth from a fire in a room with its windows and doors shut firm.</p>
<p>They remembered the begging that followed.</p>
<p>The elder Mulciber had grown doddering and prone to rambling in his old age, with a loose grasp of goings-on around him, and little to contribute but long strings of bitter wandering reminisces and bigoted invectives against the people he hated.</p>
<p>
  <em>Not my father, please, My Lord, he has been nothing but faithful all these years. Please, we can keep him in a separate wing, we can keep him out of important discussions—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You’ll not lock me away, boy. What’s happening, what’s happening?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Please, My Lord. Please don’t ask this of me.</em>
</p>
<p>Selwyn was grinning, slow and predatory, enjoying the show.</p>
<p>
  <em>We must rid ourselves of dead weight, mustn’t we, Agravain. Separate the wheat from the chaff.</em>
</p>
<p>Terry hadn’t intended to stand up.</p>
<p>They hadn’t intended to walk to the center of the room, even as they felt their feet carry them there with grim determination.</p>
<p>They had never killed a man before.</p>
<p>They never would again.</p>
<p>The words came easy to their lips.</p>
<p>The flash of green from their wand felt cold and final.</p>
<p>And satisfying.</p>
<p>And frightening.</p>
<p>The old man slumped forward in his chair. Terry remembered the slow spread of a wet spot on the blanket in his lap from the dregs of his dropped teacup. They remembered the fireplace reflected in empty glassy eyes.</p>
<p>They remembered Mulciber lunging at them, snarling, then stopping short at the tip of a wand held at his chest.</p>
<p>
  <em>Shall I dispose of this one too, My Lord, for his weakness and disloyalty?</em>
</p>
<p>Anyone who knew Terry Boot would think they were laying it on too thick to be sincere.</p>
<p>Nobody in that room knew Terry Boot.</p>
<p>Everyone in that room dealt in overwrought gestures of fealty, written in blood and pain and human life.</p>
<p><em>I ain’t—I </em>haven’t<em> got any family left, My Lord, but if I did, I'd happily give them up to you if it was your wish.</em></p>
<p>They had not accounted for the possibility of what happened next.</p>
<p>They only knew that if they came out of this only having killed one Death Eater—even one who mattered so little in the balance of <em>this</em> war—then they might have done their part, for how little ground they’d gotten with their time at the Manor.</p>
<p>They hadn’t expected to get in so far over their head.</p>
<p>Six days later, they never came back to the Manor from Ravenclaw Tower. They never had the chance to catch even a hint of the new plans being made after that, never heard the words <em>Hogwarts</em> and <em>siege</em> being murmured in the estate’s dark rich halls and parlors.</p>
<p>Draco reached over and plucked the burning cigarette from between Terry’s fingers, in a presumptuous gesture only he could make read as comforting.</p>
<p>He knocked the ash from the end for them and took a drag on it before handing it back.</p>
<p>“He didn’t respect you,” he told Terry. “He only did it to shame the others. If something like <em>you</em> made the effort to serve and honor him, then what excuse could <em>they</em> possibly…”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Terry said, voice rasping a little. They put the cigarette to their lips. “Really making me feel better about things.”</p>
<p>“No, don’t you <em>see</em>,” Draco replied, a little impatient. “I can’t imagine deserving anything more admirable than Voldemort’s disdain. Look at everyone he ever railed against and called worthless and undeserving: Harry Potter. Hermione Granger. You don’t deserve his respect, Terry. You’re too good for that.” Draco bit his lower lip, scratched at it with his thumbnail, and looked at them. “You also didn’t deserve being used the way you were. And then used again by the Aurors in the way I suspect they did.”</p>
<p>Terry was silent, finishing their cigarette.</p>
<p>They ground it out against the arm of the porch swing and rubbed the spot of ash away with their thumb.</p>
<p>“No one’s ever said that to me,” they said.</p>
<p>“Nobody even knows they ought to, do they?”</p>
<p>“Some do,” Terry said, thinking back on their endless rounds of interrogation after the war, on their months in Lodestone. “I ain’t no hero to ‘em, though. I’m just a useful asset. At best.” They tugged subconsciously at the left cuff of their jacket as if the sleeve could be stretched down further. They missed the oversized purple cardigan back in their room, with the hole worn in the left cuff for them to keep their thumb hooked through, safe and comforting.</p>
<p>They closed their eyes and took a deep breath in, then slowly let it back out, making a decision.</p>
<p>And shrugged off their leather jacket.</p>
<p>And turned their wrist to reach the buttons on the left sleeve of their work shirt.</p>
<p>And pushed it up, looking at Draco with an even resolute gaze that took more strength than they could admit.</p>
<p>Draco looked down and drew his breath in, a hard sharp hiss between his teeth.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” he said, the single syllable coming out hard like a whip crack in the quiet of the night. A cold hard anger burned in those ice-gray eyes. “<em>Christ</em>, Terry. Fuck my father’s house. Fuck all of that—<em>everything</em>. That isn’t the thing that ought to matter most here and you <em>know</em> it. Even if you’re the only one who does.”</p>
<p>Terry yanked their sleeve down.</p>
<p>They buttoned it again and pulled their jacket back on, wrapping themself tight inside it.</p>
<p>“No,” they said. “Your father’s house is the only fight I’ve been given. I told you. I told you I wasn’t doing this for you and your money and your bloody estate. I’m not fighting <em>for</em> you, dear. I’m fighting <em>against</em> them. You just happen to be the only weapon I’ve got. So you shut up and do as you’re told and don’t fuck this up for me. Don’t go running your mouth to Harry or anyone about any of this. The fight I’ve got here is bloody hard enough without you adding any new odds.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry and Neville were almost back across the lawn, having just skirted the lake to its far shore.</p>
<p>Putting a hand on Neville’s shoulder, Harry asked, “Nev, d’you mind if I stay here a bit? I want to sit for a bit and…” He waved a hand up at the panorama of the entirety of Hogwarts at night. “You go on back. I just need a minute.”</p>
<p>Neville nodded and smiled. “Of course, Harry. I understand.”</p>
<p>As Neville turned to head back to his cabin, Harry added, “And Nev?”</p>
<p>“What, Harry?”</p>
<p>“Thanks. For doing this with me. I should’ve come a long time ago.”</p>
<p>Shaking his head, Neville assured him, “Nay, Harry, you came back when you were ready.”</p>
<p>Harry took a seat on one of the big rocks at the edge of the lake and drank in the sight of the soft cloudy glow of moonlight on water, the castle, the owlery, the Quidditch pitch beyond. The huddled mound of Hagrid’s hut like a sleeping dragon with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney. The edge of the Forbidden Forest, the silhouette of the Whomping Willow, vast and calm, creaking with the sway of its branches.</p>
<p>It was different than when he was a student.</p>
<p><em>He</em> was different than the boy he had been back then.</p>
<p>It didn’t feel the same it had been, as though nothing ever changed.</p>
<p>Things had changed.</p>
<p>And yet—<em>and yet</em>—being here still <em>fit</em>, as though he still belonged, just in a different way than he once had.</p>
<p>Neville fit here as well, as though Hogwarts had tailored itself around the man he had grown to be. He didn’t need to be the same boy he once was in order to keep belonging.</p>
<p>Harry couldn’t remember the last place he had like this.</p>
<p>Not the Auror Department.</p>
<p>Not living in someone else’s house that never even quite managed to belong to Sirius before he was gone.</p>
<p>Not in the impermanent flat he had now, and never for even a moment back on Privet Drive.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure how long he sat out in the quiet nighttime, but eventually he noticed that his fingers and nose were going numb with cold.</p>
<p>So he went back past the warm glittering greenhouses and down the rocky path to Neville’s home.</p>
<p>When he walked inside, the only person left in the main room was Malfoy.</p>
<p>He was sitting on the couch, feet tucked up under him, with half a slice of lemon poppyseed cake on a plate beside him and his hands wrapped around a mug of tea.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Harry said. “Hi.”</p>
<p>That felt far too inadequate to break the silence that spread between them, heavy with anticipation.</p>
<p>Malfoy raised one eyebrow, “<em>Hi</em>,” he echoed, a little mocking and aloof in the way Harry was starting to find likable. Comforting. Familiar.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat. “Did Terry—?”</p>
<p>“Go home? Yes.”</p>
<p>“And Neville—”</p>
<p>“Went to bed.” Malfoy set his mug on the side table next to the couch, and stretched lazily, watching Harry watch him. He tugged the hem of his t-shirt back down into place and rearranged himself casually on the couch, farther to the side, leaving so much open space. “So I <em>suppose</em>, Potter, that leaves just you and me.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Lyrics at the beginning of the chapter from "In the Hidden Places" by The Mountain Goats.</p>
<p>Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, and thank you so SO much to everyone who's still reading this :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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